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THE 

BRIDE  OF  CHRIST 


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ST.    CATHARINE. 
By  Titian. 


THE 

BRIDE  OF  CHRIST 


A  STUDY  IN 

CHRISTIAN  LEGEND  LORE 


PAUL  CARUS 
M 


ILLUSTRATED 


CHICAGO 
THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  COMPANY. 

LONDON  AGENTS 

KEGAN   PAUL,   TRENCH,  TRUBNER   &  CO.,   LTD. 

1908 


GENERAL 


3&* 

^3 


Copyright  1908 

by 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  CO. 

CHICAGO 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 


The  Divine  Bridegroom. 

Jesus  and  the  Christ-Conception I 

The  Saviour  as  a  Bridegroom 5 

Marduk  and  Christ 6 

The  Monument  of  Boghaz-K6i 8 

The  Marriage  of  the  Lamb 10 

Sophia  and  Mary 13 

The  Church  as  Bride 14 

Church  Hymns 17 

Womanhood  Sanctified 19 

Nuns 22 

Olympian  Marriages. 

The  Spirit  of  Greek  Mythology 25 

The  Difficulties  of  Polytheism ....  28 

Nativity  Legends 33 

Marriages  Between  the  Races  of  Gods  and  Men 37 

Peleus  and  Thetis 44 

Legends  of  Rome 49 

St.  Catharine. 

The  Bride  of  Christ 53 

St.  Catharine  of  Siena 54 

St.  Catharine  of  Alexandria 57 

Mielot's  Account 63 

The  Version  of  the  Roman  Breviary 72 

Pagan  Analogies 81 

St.  Catharine  in  Art. 

Poetic  Symbolism 84 

The  National  Gallery  of  London 89 

Artists  of  the  German  Schools 92 

A  Memling  Breviary 103 

Conclusion * 108 


180694 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 


St.  Catharine.    By  Titian.     (Frontispiece.) 

The  Mystic  Marriage.    By  Previtali I 

The  Mystic  Marriage.     By  Maratti 2 

The  Mystic  Marriage.     By  Tintoretto 3 

The  Mystic  Marriage  (Cadiz).    By  Murillo 4 

The  Mystic  Marriage.    By  Giuliano  Bugiardini 6 

The  Monument  from  Boghaz-K6i 8 

Wedding  Procession  of  Dionysus  and  Ariadne 9 

Coin  of  Alexander 11 

Coin  of  Lysimachus 11 

Coin  of  Ptolemy 11 

The  Marriage  of  the  Lamb.    By  Schnorr  von  Karolsfeld 12 

The  Mystic  Marriage  (Rome).     By  Murillo 13 

The  Mystic  Marriage.     By  Correggio 15 

The  Mystic  Marriage.     By  Parmigianino 16 

The  Mystic  Marriage.     By  Paul  Veronese 20 

The  Mystic  Marriage.    By  Luini 21 

A  Pagan  Nun 23 

Marriage  of  Zeus  and  Hera  (A  Pompeian  Fresco) 26 

Marriage  of  Zeus  and  Hera  (Outline  drawing  of  the  preceding).  27 

Hera  as  a  Bride  (Detail) 28 

Ares  and  Aphrodite 29 

Perseus  Rescuing  Andromeda 30 

Rhea  Welcoming  Kronos 33 

Rhea's  Deception 34 

Hermes  Saving  the  Child  Dionysus 35 

Marriage  of  Dionysus  and  Ariadne 36 

Wedding  of  Heracles  and  Hebe 38 

Eros  and  Psyche  Together  with  the  Good  Shepherd 40 

Orpheus  and  Euridice 41 

Marriage  of  Poseidon  and  Amymone 43 


VI  THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 

PAGE 

Peleus  Wrestles  with  Thetis 44 

Peleus  and  Thetis  (Amphora  from  Rhodes) 45 

Aphrodite  Persuading  Helen 46 

The  Portland  Vase  (Representing  the  Marriage  of  Thetis).  ...  47 

The  Frangois  Vase  (Representing  the  Marriage  of  Thetis).  ...  48 

Mars  and  Rea  Silvia 50 

The  She  Wolf  of  the  Roman  Capitol.  . 51 

Venus  and  Anchises 52 

Marriage  of  the  Catharines.    By  Borgognone 54 

The  Marriage  of  St.  Catharine.     By  Fra  Bartolommeo 55 

St.  Catharine  of  Siena.    By  Lorenzo  da  San  Severino 56 

St.  Catharine  of  Alexandria.    By  Ghirlandajo 58 

St.  Catharine  of  Alexandria.    By  Andrea  del  Sarto 59 

The  Holy  Family  and  St.  Catharine.    By  Luca  di  Signorelli.  .  .  60 

The  Holy  Family  and  St.  Catharine.    By  Giacobo  Francia 61 

St.  Catharine  of  Alexandria.    By  Carlo  Dolci 62 

Madonna  and  Saints.    By  "Master  of  St.  Severin." 64 

The  Virgin  Enthroned  (Sienese  of  15th  century) 65 

The  Marriage  of  St.  Catharine.    From  Mielot's  Vie  de  Ste.  Ca- 
therine   67 

St.  Catharine  Teaching.     By  Masolino 69 

St.  Catharine's  Deliverance.    From  Mielot's  Vie  de  Ste.  Cathe- 
rine   71 

St.  Catharine  in  a  Controversy.    By  Pinturicchio 73 

The  Martyrdom  of  St.  Catharine.     By  Luini 74,  75 

St.  Catharine's  Martyrdom.     From  Little  Pictorial  Lives  of  the 

Saints 76 

Burial  of  St.  Catharine.     By  Luini jy 

St.  Catharine  Liberated  by  Angels.    By  Masolino 78 

vSt.  Catharine  (Detail  from  above) 79 

Madonna  and  Child,  with  Saints  Barbara  and  Catharine 80 

St.  Catharine.    By  Fra  Angelico 82 

The  Marriage  of  St.  Catharine.    By  David  (Gheeraert) 84 

The  Marriage  of  St.  Catharine.    By  Hans  Memling 85 

St.  Catharine.     By  Raphael 86 

St.   Catharine  with  the   Evangelists   Matthew  and  John.     By 

"Master  Stephen." 87 

St.  Catharine.     By  Pinturicchio 88 

St.  Catharine.    By  Carlo  Crivelli 89 

St.  Catharine  (Umbrian  School) 89 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS.  Vll 

PAGE 

Scenes  from  the  Life  of  St.  Catharine.    By  "Master  of  the  St. 

George  Legends." 90,  91 

The  Holy  Family  and  Saints  Catharine  and  Barbara.    By  "Mas- 
ter of  the  Holy  Family." 92 

St.  Catharine  (Detail  from  above) 93 

Madonna  and  Child  Together  with  Female  Saints  and  Donor's 

Family.    By  "Master  of  the  Life  of  Mary." 94 

The  Glorification  of  the  Virgin  (Unknown) 95 

Madonna  and  Saints.     By  "Master  Wilhelm."  96 

St.  Catharine.    By  "Master  Wilhelm." 97 

St.  Catharine.    By  Jan  Van  Eyck 97 

Saints  Catharine,  Hubert,  and  Quirinus.    By  Stephen  Lothener.  98 

St.  Catharine  (Westphalian  School) 99 

St.  Catharine.    By  "Master  of  the  Life  of  Mary." 99 

St.  Catharine.     By  Schongauer 100,  101 

St.  Catharine's  Deliverance.    By  Diirer 102 

St.  Catharine  (From  a  Memling  Breviary) 104,  105 

A  Page  of  Illuminated  Text  (From  a  Memling  Breviary 106 


THE  DIVINE  BRIDEGROOM. 

JESUS  AND  THE  CHRIST-CONCEPTION. 

IF  a  distinction  is  made  between  Jesus  and  Christ,  Jesus 
denotes  the  man,  while  by  Christ  we  mean  the  office  and 
dignity  claimed  for  Jesus.    Jesus  lived  about  nineteen  hun- 


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THE   MYSTIC   MARRIAGE. 
By  Previtali  (15th  cent.).    In  the  Church  of  San  Giobbe  at  Venice. 

dred  years  ago  in  Palestine,  and  he  was  by  birth  a  Gali- 
lean, while  Christ  is  the  God-man,  the  realization  of  human 
perfection,  the  highest  ideal  of  religion. 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


The  basis  of  our  Christ-conception  is,  first,  the  Gospel 
tradition  of  the  character  of  Jesus,  and  for  certain  reasons 
(into  which  we  need  not  enter  here)  we  deem  the  nucleus 
of  it,  mainly  represented  by  Mark,  historical.    There  have 


THE  MYSTIC   MARRIAGE. 
By  Maratti,  1625-1713. 


been  incorporated  into  the  Gospel  stories,  however,  certain 
traits  of  Christ-conceptions  which  are  older  than  Jesus. 
They  are  ancient  reminiscences  of  saviours,  of  divine  he- 


THE  DIVINE  BRIDEGROOM, 


roes,  of  God-men,  of  mediators  between  God  and  mankind, 
of  God-incarnations,  and  from  the  beginning  these  notions 


crystallized  with  great  exuberance  around  the  figure  of  the 
Crucified. 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


Now  it  is  a  characteristic  feature  of  some  pagan  sa- 
viours that  when  they  have  conquered  the  enemy  they  enter 
in  triumphal  procession  and  celebrate  their  marriage  feast. 


'4  fe  A 

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THE  MYSTIC  MARRIAGE. 
By  Murillo,  1618-1682.     (Cadiz.)     This  was  the  artist's  last  production. 


THE  DIVINE  BRIDEGROOM. 


This  is  especially  the  case  of  Bel  Marduk,1  the  main  media- 
tor god  of  ancient  Babylon,  who  in  the  faith  of  his  wor- 
shipers bears,  in  many  respects,  a  close  resemblance  to  the 
Christ  of  Christianity. 


THE  SAVIOUR  AS  A  BRIDEGROOM. 

Since  Christianity  was  tinged  with  ascetic  sentiments 
especially  in  the  beginning,  the  marriage  idea  in  connec- 
tion with  Christ  has  been  considerably  dimmed,  but  it  was 
not  entirely  lost  sight  of.  Not  only  have  we  references  in  the 
parables  of  Jesus  which  state  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  like  unto  a  marriage  (Matt.  xxii.  1-14)  and  men's  ex- 
pectancy of  salvation  is  compared  to  the  wisdom  or  folly 
of  virgins  who  wait  for  the  bridegroom  (Matt.  xxv.  1-13),2 
but  St.  Paul  calls  the  Church  definitely  the  "Bride  of 
Christ"  (2  Cor.  xi.  2;  Eph.  v.  24-32),  and  St.  John  the 
Divine  repeatedly  speaks  of  the  bride  and  the  marriage 
of  the  Lamb.  The  bride  is  Jerusalem  representing  the 
Church  and  the  Lamb  is  Christ. 

St.  John  the  Baptist,  when  announcing  Jesus,  calls  him- 
self the  friend  of  the  bridegroom,  but  he  is  not  the  Christ. 
John  declares  "he  that  hath  the  bride  is  the  bridegroom" 
(John  iii.  29),  implying  therewith  that  Jesus  and  not  he 
himself  is  the  Messiah,  and  Christ  does  not  request  his 
disciples  to  fast,  as  stated  by  Mark3  (ii.  19)  : 

"And  Jesus  said  unto  them,  Can  the  children  of  the 
bride-chamber  fast,  while  the  bridegroom  is  with  them? 
as  long  as  they  have  the  bridegroom  with  them,  they  cannot 
fast." 


1  See  Radau,  Bel,  the  Christ  of  Ancient  Times.    Chicago :  Open  Court  Pub. 
Co.,  1908. 

2  See  also  Luke  xii.  35,  36. 

3  The  parallel  passages  are  Matt.  ix.  15,  and  Luke  v.  34. 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


MARDUK  AND   CHRIST. 


These  several  scattered  references  to  the  Saviour  as 
a  bridegroom  appear  in  a  new  light  when  compared  to  the 
bridal  festivities  of  pagan  saviours  which  were  celebrated 


THE  MYSTIC  MARRIAGE. 
By  Giuliano  Bugiardini,  1475-1554.     In  the  Pinapothek  at  Bologna. 

in  the  ancient  Orient  and  were  also  not  unknown  in  Egypt 
and  in  Greece.    We  can  not  doubt  that  here,  as  in  many 


THE  DIVINE  BRIDEGROOM.  J 

other  customs,  Babylonian,  Egyptian,  Syrian,  and  Greek 
traditions  must  have  exercised  a  very  powerful  influence 
upon  the  formation  of  religious  ideas  not  only  of  the  Jews 
but  also  and  even  more  of  Christianity. 

Marduk  may  be  compared  to  Christ  in  more  than  one 
respect.  He  is  the  beloved  Son  of  Ea,  the  God  of  Heaven, 
by  whom  he  is  addressed  in  these  words : 

"My  son,  what  is  it  that  thou  dost  not  know!  What 
then  could  I  still  teach  thee !  What  I  know  thou  knowest 
also!"4 

Marduk,  the  conqueror  of  Tiamat,  the  monster  of  the 
deep,  is  Ea's  vicegerent  on  earth;  he  is  king  of  gods  and 
men,  and  he  is  the  incarnation  of  divine  wisdom.  He  is 
the  saviour  god,  and  the  saviour  king  with  whose  arrival 
the  Golden  Age  begins  on  earth.  But  the  most  remarkable 
parallelism  obtains  between  Marduk  and  Christ  in  that 
both  rise  from  the  dead  and  the  festival  of  resurrection  is 
celebrated  for  each  in  the  beginning  of  the  natural  year  in 
the  spring. 

Little  is  known  of  Marduk's  death;  but  that  he  died 
and  descended  into  the  nether  world  appears  from  the  fact 
that  he  bears  the  name  Bel  nubatti,  "Lord  of  lamentation" 
(or  as  Schrader  translates  it,  "Herr  der  [Toten-]Klage"), 
suggesting  the  assumption  that  his  death  was  lamented  in 
a  similar  way  as  the  death  of  Adonis  or  other  vegetation 
and  solar  deities.  We  further  know  from  Greek  sources5 
(Ctesias  XXIX,  21  f . :  ^lianus,  Var.  Hist.)  that  Xerxes 
opened  and  plundered  the  tomb  of  Bel,  which  presumably 
means  the  transference  of  the  god's  statue  from  Babylon 
to  some  other  place,  and  proves  that  the  temple  of  Bel  con- 
tained the  tomb  of  the  god,  thus  implying  that  there  was 
an  annual  day  of  lamentation  for  his  death. 

The  Easter  festival  of  Bel  coincides  with  the  New 

4  Schrader,  Die  Kcilinschriften  und  das  Alte  Testament,  pp.  374. 

5  Schrader,  ibid. 


8 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


Year's  day  of  Babylon,  the  first  of  Nisan,  and  was  cele- 
brated under  the  name  tabu,  which  Jensen  translates  by 
"resurrection"  in  the  sense  of  the  Christian  Epiphany.  It 
was  the  main  religious  festival  of  Babylon  and  in  a  descrip- 
tion of  it  we  read  of  Marduk:  ihis  ana  hadassutu,  "he  has- 
tens to  wedlock."  (Schrader  translates,  "er  eilte  zur  Braut- 
schaft.")  His  bride  is  called  Tsarpanitu,  which  is  com- 
monly assumed  to  be  a  cognomen  of  Istar. 


THE  MONUMENT  OF  BOGHAZ-KOI. 

Near  the  hamlet  Boghaz-K6i  in  Asia  Minor  have  been 
discovered  extensive  monuments  indicating  that  it  was  the 


THE   MONUMENT  FROM    BOGHAZ-KOI. 


site  of  a  large  city  which  can  be  easily  identified  with  the 
ancient  capital  of  Phrygia,  and  we  here  reproduce  one  most 
remarkable  has  relief  of  a  mythological  character  which 
has  been  the  subject  of  much  discussion  among  archaeol- 
ogists. We  have  no  inscription  that  might  assist  us  in  ex- 
plaining the  several  figures,  but  the  scene  here  represented 
needs  but  a  description  to  find  its  correct  interpretation. 

We  see  before  us  two  groups  of  divinities  meeting 
each  other.  From  the  left  arrives  a  god  crowned  with  a 
high  tiara,  holding  in  his  right  hand  a  club,  and  in  his 


THE  DIVINE  BRIDEGROOM.  9 

left  an  emblem  possibly  symbolizing  a  flower  or  a  fruit. 
At  his  side  leaps  the  animal  that  is  sacred  to  him  (a  ram 
or  a  bull).  He  steps  upon  the  bowed  heads  of  his  con- 
quered enemies.  He  is  followed  by  other  figures  dressed 
exactly  like  him  only  smaller  in  size.  We  can  not  be  mis- 
taken if  we  regard  them  as  other  divinities  of  less  signifi- 
cance. It  is  not  impossible  that  the  original  number  of 
the  whole  escort  of  gods  was  four,  and  that  we  have  here 
before  us  the  victorious  saviour  god,  analogous  to  Marduk 
of  Babylon,  attended  by  the  guardians  of  the  four  corners 
of  the  world.  It  appears  that  two  of  them  have,  been 
broken  off,  for  the  two  gaps  are  just  large  enough  to  ac- 
commodate the  missing  figures. 


P-7  ^'iin-   «.'*%j.«'ti'.^    Lwi.nl.   inning      i—  "'J,      UliUUMM,i»IM.  111.'  "J 


prmm 


WEDDING  PROCESSION  OF  DIONYSUS  AND  ARIADNE. 
A  Sarcophagus  in  the  Glyptothek  at  Munich. 

From  the  opposite  direction  comes  the  goddess  Istara 
(or  Astarte)  standing  upon  a  lioness  and  holding  in  her 
hand  the  same  flowerlike  emblem  which  the  god  offers  her. 
She  is  accompanied  by  an  animal,  apparently  a  cow,  and 
she  is  followed  by  one  young  man  with  a  staff  and  a  war 
axe,  standing  (like  her)  upon  a  wild  animal, — a  lioness, 
a  leopard,  or  some  similar  creature.  Behind  him  come  two 
female  divinities  borne  on  a  double  headed  eagle,  and  rais- 
ing their  hands  in  the  same  attitude  of  greeting  as  their 
mistress. 

It  is  difficult  to  offer  a  simpler  explanation  than  that 
we  are  here  confronted  with  an  illustration  of  the  marriage 
feast  of  the  saviour  god  of  whom  after  the  conquest  of  his 


IO  THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 

enemies,  the  ancient  monuments  of  Babylon  declare  that 
he  celebrated  his  wedding. 

It  is  the  mythological  scene  celebrated  in  annual  festi- 
vals and  not  less  dear  to  the  ancient  pagans  who  believed  in 
the  stories  of  their  gods,  than  Easter  is  now  to  Christians. 

Similar  festivals  have  been  celebrated  in  other  cults, 
e.  g.,  the  wedding  of  Zeus  with  Hera,  of  Dionysus  with 
Ariadne,  of  Eros  with  Psyche,  etc. 

The  marriage  feasts  of  the  several  gods  were  always 
days  of  rejoicing  and  the  artists  of  classical  antiquity  have 
taken  the  opportunity  to  illustrate  them  in  innumerable 
monuments  of  art. 

Bel  Marduk  was  replaced  among  the  Persians  by  Mith- 
ras who  succeeded  to  all  the  honors  of  the  Babylonian  god, 
and  in  the  days  of  Christianity  Christ  replaced  both. 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB. 

In  the  book  of  Revelations,  which  preserves  a  more 
primitive  conception  of  Christ  than  the  Gospels  and  con- 
tains more  reminiscences  of  ancient  Babylon  (as  Gunkel 
has  proved)  than  any  other  book  in  the  New  Testament, 
we  read  of  the  marriage  feast  of  the  Lamb  (xix.  7-9)  : 

"Let  us  be  glad  and  rejoice,  and  give  honor  to  him: 
for  the  marriage  of  the  Lamb  is  come,  and  his  wife  hath 
made  herself  ready.  And  to  her  was  granted  that  she 
should  be  arrayed  in  fine  linen,  clean  and  white:  for  the 
fine  linen  is  the  righteousness  of  saints.  And  he  saith  unto 
me,  Write,  Blessed  are  they  which  are  called  unto  the  mar- 
riage supper  of  the  Lamb.  And  he  saith  unto  me,  These 
are  the  true  sayings  of  God." 

We  must  remember  that  the  lamb  is  the  New  Testament 
emblem  for  Christ  corresponding  to  Bel  Marduk  whose 
symbol  is  the  ram  or  male  sheep,  corresponding  also  to 
the  ram  of  Amen  Ra.     Alexander  the  Great  had  a  coin 


THE  DIVINE  BRIDEGROOM. 


II 


struck  which  pictured  him  with  the  horns  of  a  wether  an- 
nouncing himself  as  the  son  of  the  god  Ammon  in  order 
to  indicate  that  he  was  the  expected  king  with  whose  ar- 


COIN  OF  ALEXANDER. 


rival  the  Golden  Age  would  begin.     Other  Eastern  mon- 
archs  followed  his  example.     The  word  "lamb"  in  Reve- 


COIN  OF  LYSIMACHUS. 


lations  translates  the  Greek  apviov  which  means  a  little 
ram  conveying  the  idea  of  a  child,  born  to  be  the  leader 


COIN   OF  PTOLEMY. 


of  his  people.   Our  modern  idea  of  a  lamb  as  the  symbol  of 
innocence  and  submission  to  the  butcher  is  absolutely  mis- 


12 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST 


sing  in  the  original  conception  of  the  young  ram,  and  we 
dare  say  that  the  intention  of  the  word  is  almost  the  re- 
verse. 

Further  down,  the  bride  of  the  lamb  is  interpreted  to 
be  the  new  city  of  Jerusalem,  which  in  Christianity  again 
symbolizes  the  Church.     We  readG : 

"And  I  John  saw  the  holy  city,  new  Jerusalem,  coming 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB. 
By  Schnorr  von  Karolsfeld. 

down  from  God  out  of  heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride  adorned 
for  her  husband." 

That  the  interpretation  is  later  than  the  original  idea 
of  a  bride  is  quite  obvious  in  the  Fourth  Book  of  Esdras, 
where  the  prophet  encounters  a  woman  and  listens  to  the 
tale  of  her  tribulation.    The  woman  disappears  and  in  her 

6  Compare  also  xxi.  9. 


THE  DIVINE  BRIDEGROOM.  1 3 

place  he  beholds  a  city,  whereupon  the  angel  Uriel  explains 
the  vision,  saying  (4  Esdras  x.  44)  :  "The  woman  which 
thou  hast  seen  is  Sion,  which  thou  now  seest  before  thee 
as  a  builded  city." 

SOPHIA   AND    MARY. 

A  similar  idea  is  found  in  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon 
where  wisdom  is  personified  as  Sophia  and  is  spoken  of  as 


THE  MYSTIC  MARRIAGE. 
By  Murillo  (1618-1682).    In  the  Vatican. 

having  existed  before  the  world,  taking  the  place  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  in  Christianity.  We  read  for  instance  in 
chapters  vii  and  viii: 

"For  wisdom  is  more  moving  than  any  motion:  she 
passeth  and  goeth  through  all  things  by  reason  of  her  pure- 


14  THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 

ness ....  And  being  but  one,  she  can  do  all  things :  and 
remaining  in  herself,  she  maketh  all  things  new :  and  in  all 
ages  entering  into  holy  souls,  she  maketh  them  friends  of 
God,  and  prophets.  For  God  loveth  none  but  him  that 
dwelleth  with  wisdom.  .  .  .Wisdom  reacheth  from  one  end 
to  another  mightily :  and  sweetly  doth  she  order  all  things 
....  In  that  she  is  conversant  with  God,  she  magnifieth 
her  nobility :  yea,  the  Lord  of  all  things  himself  loved  her. 
For  she  is  privy  to  the  mysteries  of  the  knowledge  of  God, 
and  a  lover  of  his  works." 

Sophia  retains  this  place  which  she  holds  in  the  Old 
Testament  Apocrypha  with  the  Gnostics,  and  as  we  know 
from  a  fragment  of  the  Gospel  According  to  the  Hebrews, 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  regarded  as  the  wife  of  God  the  Father, 
for  there  Jesus  uses  the  expression  "My  Mother  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  as  quoted  by  Epiphanius  (H acres,  LXII,  2). 

The  idea  of  a  trinity  as  God, — father,  mother  and  son 
— faded  away  quickly  during  the  early  development  of  the 
Christian  dogma,  and  it  seems  that  the  replacement  of  the 
word  logos  for  sophia  helped  to  obliterate  the  idea  that  the 
second  person  of  the  deity  was  female.  The  change  was 
also  favored  by  the  fact  that  while  ritah,  the  Hebrew  term 
for  spirit,  is  feminine,  the  Greek  term  pneuma  is  neuter. 


THE  CHURCH  AS  BRIDE. 

The  notion  that  Christ  as  the  Viceroy  of  God  on  earth 
had  a  bride  remained  constantly  in  the  minds  of  the  people 
as  much  as  the  idea  of  the  anti-Christ.  The  world  was 
regarded  as  divided  into  two  camps,  the  kingdom  of  God 
governed  by  Christ,  identified  with  the  Church  under  the 
leadership  of  the  Pope,  and  the  empire  of  unbelief  which 
composed  the  entire  pagan  world  and  also  the  heretics  of 
Christianity.  In  the  mystic  literature  these  ideas  turn  up 
again  and  again,  and  during  the  Middle  Ages  the  bride  of 


THE  DIVINE  BRIDEGROOM. 


15 


Christ  is  usually  thought  to  be  the  Church,  while  among 
Protestants  it  is  generally  the  soul.  As  an  instance  we 
will  quote  a  passage  from  Hildegard  of  Bingen,  an  abbess 
and  a  prophetess  who  saw  visions  quite  similar  to  those 
of  St.  John  the  Divine  in  the  Revelations.    She  herself  was 


THE  MYSTIC  MARRIAGE. 
By  Correggio,  1494-1534.     In  the  Louvre. 

almost  illiterate,  but  her  adviser,  presumably  her  father 
confessor,  reduced  her  prophecies  to  an  approximately  cor- 
rect Latin  and  had  them  published. 

In  1 147-48  Pope  Eugene  IV  happened  to  visit  the  Abbot 
of  Treves.     There  he  met  Henry,  Archbishop  of  Mentz, 


i6 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


*7 

who  through  Kuno,  the  Abbot  of  Disibodenberg,  had  be- 
come deeply  impressed  with  the  spiritual  profundity  and 
genuineness  of  Hildegard's  visions,  and  when  a  report  of 
them  was  submitted  to  the  Council  of  Treves,  the  Pope, 
urged  by  the  Abbot  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  who  happened 
to  be  present,  readily  acknowledged  the  divine  origin  of 
Hildegard's  revelations  and  encouraged  her  in  a  personal 
letter  to  continue  her  writings.7 

We  quote  a  passage8  from  one  of  the  prophecies  re- 
corded in  the  book  Scivias  ascribed  to  the  Abbess  Hilde- 
gard,  the  substance  of  which  is  repeatedly  expressed  in 
similar  words,  and  which  makes  reference  to  the  Antichrist 
as  well  as  the  bride  of  Christ  which  latter  here  symbolizes 
the  Church: 

"I  perceived  a  voice  from  heaven  which  spoke  to  me: 
Although  everything  on  earth  tends  toward  the  end,  yet 
the  bride  of  my  son  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  she  is  hard 
pressed  in  her  children  as  well  as  she  herself  by  the  mes- 
sengers of  the  Son  of  Perdition  as  well  as  by  himself,  shall 
by  no  means  be  annihilated,  however  much  she  may  be  hard 
pressed.  On  the  contrary  she  will  rise  at  the  end  of  time 
stronger  and  more  vigorous,  and  more  beautiful,  and  glor- 
ious, so  that  she  will  meet  the  embraces  of  her  Loved  One 
in  a  more  graceful  and  lovely  manner,  and  it  is  this  that 
the  vision  which  thou  seest  indicates  in  a  mystical  way." 

The  sensualism  of  the  Abbess  Hildegard's  prophecy  is 
quite  in  keeping  with  the  hyperspirituality  in  which  hys- 
terical minds  of  her  type  are  wont  to  indulge. 


CHURCH  HYMNS. 

The  idea  that  the  Church  was  the  bride  of  Christ  has 
continued  down  to  modern  times,  and  has  been  cultivated 

7  For  further  details  see  Wilhelm  Preger's  Geschichte  der  deutscheH  Mys- 
tik,  pp.  33  f . 

8  Quoted  from  Preger,  loc.  cit.,  p.  34. 


l8  THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 

even  among  Protestants,  who  have  been  most  reluctant  to 
accept  the  legend  of  St.  Catharine,  because  the  very  idea 
of  attributing  a  personal  bride  to  Christ  seems  to  give  them 
a  shudder,  as  if  it  were  blasphemy,  for  it  savors  too  much 
of  mediaeval  legends,  saint-worship,  and  paganism.  Yet 
the  belief  in  a  symbolical  bride  is  still  retained  as  is  evi- 
denced by  many  chorals  sung  even  to-day  which  celebrate 
the  marriage  of  the  Lamb,  or  the  marriage  of  the  King, 
the  bride  being  mostly  the  soul,  or  the  elect,  represented  by 
the  wise  virgins.    We  quote  the  following  lines : 

"The  Bridegroom  is  advancing 
Each  hour  he  draws  more  nigh. 
Up !  Watch  and  pray,  nor  slumber, 
At  midnight  comes  the  cry. 

"The  watchers  on  the  mountain 
Proclaim  the  bridegroom  near. 
Go,  meet  him  as  he  cometh 
With  hallelujahs  clear." 

In  another  choral  we  read : 

"Jerusalem  the  holy 
To  purity  restored ; 
Meek  bride,  all  fair  and  lowly, 
Go  forth  to  meet  thy  Lord. 

"With  love  and  wonder  smitten 
And  bowed  in  guileless  shame, 
Upon  thy  heart  be  written 
The  new  mysterious  name." 

And  a  third  Church  song  of  the  same  character  begins 
with  this  stanza: 

"The  marriage  feast  is  ready, 
The  marriage  of  the  Lamb. 
He  calls  the  faithful  children 
Of  faithful  Abraham, 


THE  DIVINE  BRIDEGROOM.  19 

"Now  from  the  golden  portals 
The  sounds  of  triumph  ring ; 
The  triumph  of  the  Victor, 
The  marriage  of  the  King." 

The  Church  hymns  here  quoted  are  by  no  means  all  the 
songs  of  this  character.  There  are  many  more  that  belong 
to  the  same  class,  for  instance:  "Behold  the  Bridegroom 
Cometh,"  beginning  "Our  lamps  are  trimmed  and  burn- 
ing" ;  and  "The  Lord  is  coming  by  and  by,"  with  the  re- 
frain: "Will  you  be  ready  when  the  Bridegroom  comes?" 
We  mention  further,  "Wake,  awake,  the  night  is  flying," 
and  there  are  several  more. 

Protestantism  has  most  assuredly  gone  to  the  extreme 
in  rejecting  romantic  similes  and  fantastic  notions,  yet  the 
underlying  idea  is  the  same  as  in  pre-Christian  festivals 
and,  if  we  discovered  in  an  ancient  cuneiform  inscription 
the  two  lines: 

'The  triumph  of  the  Victor, 
The  marriage  of  the  King," 

our  Assyriologists  would  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  words 
have  reference  to  Bel  Marduk,  who  after  his  victory  over 
the  dragon  Tiamat  enters  in  triumphal  parade  to  celebrate 
his  marriage  with  Istar  Tsarpanitu.9 


WOMANHOOD  SANCTIFIED. 

The  craving  for  a  religious  reverence  of  womanhood 
remained  even  in  the  age  of  asceticism,  and  found  its  satis- 
faction in  the  worship  of  the  Theotokos,  the  mother  of 
God,  which  is  a  literal  translation  of  ancient  pagan  terms, 
especially  the  Egyptian  neter  mut.  Other  titles  of  Mary, 
also  inherited  from  pagan  antiquity,  are  "Holy  Lady," 
"Our  Lady,"  "Queen  of  Heaven,"  etc. ;  but  in  addition  the 

9  Schrader,  ibid.,  pp.  371-394. 

1      - 


> 


V 


20 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


THE  MYSTIC  MARRIAGE. 
By  Paul  Veronese,  1528-1588.    In  the  Church  of  St.  Catharine  at  Venice. 


THE  DIVINE  BRIDEGROOM.  21 

idea  of  the  Saviour's  bride  though  considerably  neglected 
was  never  entirely  forgotten. 

In  the  imagination  of  the  people,  though  rarely  ever  of 
the  clergy,  the  idea  of  the  Saviour's  marriage  remained  in 


THE  MYSTIC  MARRIAGE. 
By  Luini,  1460-1530. 


a  hazy  atmosphere  of  mysticism  and  finally  took  a  definite 
shape  toward  the  tenth  century  by  imputing  to  Jesus  a  mys- 
tical bride  who  was  called  Catharine,  the  "pure  one,"  to 
indicate  that  she  was  an  ideal  of  virginity.    The  notion  of 


22  THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 

any  true  wedlock  relation  was  necessarily  excluded  accord- 
ing to  the  prevalent  asceticism  of  Church  doctrines,  and  so 
in  this  fairytale  atmosphere  the  legend  of  a  spiritual  mar- 
riage of  Christ  assumed  a  more  and  more  definite  shape. 

Unquestionably  St.  Catharine  has  been  selected  as  the 
bride  of  Christ  on  account  of  her  name,  for  the  idea  of  the 
bridal  relation  between  the  Saviour  and  the  saved  soul  is 
not  so  unusual  as  it  might  appear  to  a  later  born  genera- 
tion, whose  interest  in  fantastic  imagery  has  considerably 
waned. 

The  idea  that  the  union  of  Christ  with  the  Church  is 
to  be  conceived  as  a  marriage  relation  is  based  upon  old 
traditions,  for  in  the  history  of  Israel  the  covenant  of  God 
with  his  people  is  symbolized  in  the  same  way.10 

NUNS. 

Mystics  of  all  ages  have  reveled  in  the  thought  of  a 
mystical  marriage  into  which  the  soul  enters  with  Christ, 
— a  sentiment  which  is  repeatedly  and  sometimes  with 
great  vigor  expressed  by  Angelus  Silesius  in  such  lines 
as  these : 

"-Child,  be  the  bride  of  God, 
And  be  thou  His  alone. 
Thou  shalt  His  sweetheart  be. 
As  He's  thy  lover  grown." 

And  again: 

"The  God-enraptured  man — 
One  only  pain  hath  he ; 
He  can  not  soon  enough 
With  God  his  Lover  be." 

The  idea  of  the  soul  as  a  bride  of  Christ  has  found  its 
most  expressive  form  in  the  institution  of  celibacy,  which 

10  Compare  the  author's  article  "Chastity  and  Phallic  Worship"  in  The 
Open  Court,  Vol.  XVII,  p.  611. 


A  PAGAN  NUN. 


Portrait  bust  of  a  vestal  virgin  found  at  Rome,  now  in  the  National 
Museum  at  Naples. 


24  THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 

assuredly  in  the  case  of  nuns,  is  considered  as  a  marriage 
to  the  Saviour ;  and  this  conception  is  not  purely  Christian 
but  finds  its  prototypes  in  pre-Christian  religions. 

As  Christianity  has  its  nuns  so  the  pagans  had  their 
virgin  priestesses  whose  sanctity  was  both  greatly  admired 
and  highly  respected  by  the  people  of  all  classes.  Among 
the  Homeric  hymns  is  preserved  a  touching  prayer  of  such 
a  nun  of  pagan  antiquity,  and  we  translate  these  lines  as 
follows : 

"Chaste  goddess,  hear  me  that  invoke  thine  ear, 
O  thou  who  nourishest  the  growing  year! 
Grant  that  thy  maid  her  troth  to  no  one  plight 
And  scorn  all  love,  yet  always  take  delight 
In  converse  with  the  thoughtful  grayhaired  sage 
Who  past  his  prime  has  sobered  down  by  age." 

The  analogy  between  the  nun's  vow  and  the  marriage 
of  a  bride  is  obvious  in  many  details  of  the  ritual,  and  the 
same  interpretation  was  not  absent  in  pagan  antiquity 
where,  for  instance,  the  vestal  virgins  were  regarded  as 
matrons  and  wore  six  braids,  the  characteristic  hair  dress 
of  brides  and  married  women. 

In  the  "Common  Office  for  a  Virgin  and  Martyr,"  the 
First  Responsory  reads  as  follows  in  the  English  version 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Breviary: 

"Come,  Bride  of  Christ,  and  take  the  everlasting  crown, 
which  the  Lord  hath  prepared  for  thee,  even  for  thee  who 
for  the  love  of  Him  hast  shed  thy  blood,  and  art  entered 
with  angels  into  His  Garden. 

"Come,  O  My  chosen  one,  and  I  will  establish  My 
throne  in  thee,  for  the  King  hath  greatly  desired  thy 
beauty. 

"And  thou  art  entered  with  Angels  into  His  garden." 


OLYMPIAN  MARRIAGES. 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  GREEK  MYTHOLOGY. 

FOR  us  who  have- been  educated  in  Christian  countries 
and  are  strongly  under  the  influence  of  Protestantism 
with  its  antipathy  to  symbolism,  legend,  ritual,  and  other 
allegorical  methods  of  representing  religious  ideas,  it  is 
very  difficult  indeed  to  understand  the  spirit  of  pagan  devo- 
tion. As  a  rule  our  opinions  concerning  paganism  are  full 
of  unwarranted  prejudices.  We  not  only  impute  to  hea- 
thens the  superstitions  that  they  actually  had,  but  in  our 
imagination  we  picture  their  religion  as  of  the  grossest 
kind.  We  regard  them  as  idolaters  who  worship  images 
of  brass  and  stone,  and  think  of  them  as  possessing  a  faith 
in  demons.  The  reason  is  not  only  that  the  ancient  pagan- 
ism is  mostly  poetical  and  mystical,  while  our  own  religion 
is  anti-poetical,  discarding  imagination  of  any  kind,  but 
also  that  our  judgment  of  the  classical  gods  is  influenced 
by  the  comments  which  the  Church  fathers  made  upon 
them,  and  we  are  further  disturbed  in  our  appreciation  of 
the  good  features  of  paganism,  not  so  much  by  our  in- 
sufficient knowledge  of  the  facts,  as  by  taking  into  con- 
sideration later  conceptions  which  ought  to  be  ruled  out. 
If  we  knew  less  of  the  later  period  of  Greek  civilization  we 
would  be  more  just  in  our  appreciation  of  the  religious 
spirit  of  its  prime. 

The  Church  fathers  have  picked  out  the  worst  features 
of  pagan  worship,  have  exaggerated  them,  and  have  put 


26 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


a  malignant  interpretation  upon  many  things  which,  if 
properly  understood,  do  not  deserve  any  blame.  Moreover, 
even  if  the  opinion  of  the  Church  fathers  did  not  influence 


MARRIAGE  OF  ZEUS  AND  HERA. 
A  Pompeian  Fresco. 


us,  we  know  paganism  only  from  sources  of  comparatively 
late  date  when  a  decay  of  religious  life  had  set  in  through 
a  fusion  of  the  various  religions  and  had  produced  a  state 


OLYMPIAN    MARRIAGES.  2J 

of  religious  anarchy  and  decadence  which  finally  proved 
ruinous  to  the  ancient  conception,  thus  necessitating  the 
formation  of  a  new  religion  which  appeared  in  Christianity. 
Our  historians  and  students  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  cults 
are  familiar  with  Lucian,  and  kindred  writers,  who  are 
the  Ingersolls  of  antiquity,  ridiculing  the  ancient  gods  and 
legends,  and  having  themselves  lost  the  spirit  of  devotion 


MARRIAGE  OF  ZEUS  AND  HERA. 
Outline  drawing  of  illustration  on  preceding  page. 

which  animated  their  ancestors  at  the  time  when  pagan- 
ism was  suited  to  the  needs  of  the  people.    Other  authors, 

1  Formerly  this  picture  was  interpreted  to  represent  Kronos  and  Rhea, 
but  Helbig  (Wandgemalde  No.  114)  succeeded  in  convincing  students  of 
classical  art  that  it  can  only  refer  to  the  marriage  of  Zeus.  The  bride  is 
attended  by  Iris.  Zeus  sits  in  his  grove  lightly  covered  by  his  veil  of  clouds. 
Archaeologists  find  difficulty  in  explaining  the  three  youths  with  wreaths  on 
their  heads.  The  easiest  explanation  seems  to  be  that  they  represent  man- 
kind rejoicing  on  this  festive  occasion. 


28 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


who  like  Plutarch  show  much  reverence  for  religion,  are 
too  philosophical  to  represent  the  naive  belief  of  ancient 
paganism. 


THE  DIFFICULTIES  OF  POLYTHEISM. 

We  must  consider  that  most  of  the  Greek  and  other 
legends  received  their  final  shape  in  special  localities.  As 
a  rule  they  are  closely  affiliated  to  the  public  worship,  to 
mystery  plays  which  were  performed  at  the  temple,  and 
to  ceremonies  and  customs  which  formed  part  of  the  public 
life  of  the  commonwealth.     In  one  part  of  Asia  Minor 


HERA  AS  A   BRIDE. 
Detail  from  the  Pompeian  Fresco  shown  on  the  preceding  pages. 

where  Semitic  influences  prevail,  the  god-man  is  worshiped 
under  the  name  of  Adonis,  which  means  Lord.2  In  the 
spring  Adonis  celebrates  his  marriage  with  the  goddess 
Astarte,  or  Istar,  or  Aphrodite,  or  as  we  now  commonly 

2  The  Hebrew  *:iN. 


OLYMPIAN    MARRIAGES. 


29 


say,  Venus,  but  when  the  year  draws  to  a  close  and  vege- 
tation withers,  he  is  wounded  in  a  chase  for  the  wild  boar 
(an  animal  sacred  to  him),  and  the  beautiful  god  dies  to 
indicate  the  deadened  condition  of  nature  during  the  win- 


; 

M^B        mm 

t      *n 

ARES  AND  APHRODITE. 
A  Pompeian  Fresco. 


ter.    In  the  spring  he  re-awakes  to  new  life  and  again  runs 
the  course  of  his  divine  career. 

In  some  places  and  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year  the 


of  Thf   ■> 


3Q 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


goddess  of  nature  was  a  virgin,  and  virginity  formed  her 
typical  character.  Then  again  in  other  legends  or  on  other 
occasions  she  was  celebrated  as  the  bride  or  the  wife  of 
some  god.  The  same  divinity  could  be  the  protectress  at 
the  same  time  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  of  warfare,  of  life 


PERSEUS  RESCUING  ANDROMEDA. 


and  death  and  resurrection.  These  differentiations  led  to 
personal  distinctions,  and  we  have  in  Greek  mythology  the 
virgin  Diana,  and  the  virgin  Pallas  Athene  by  the  side -of 
Aphrodite,  the  goddess  of  love,  etc.,  the  goddess  Hera, 


OLYMPIAN    MARRIAGES.  3 1 

Queen  of  Heaven  and  wife  of  Zeus,  and  many  others.  All 
these  figures  were  once  united  in  one  divinity,  and  we 
find  that  in  some  myths  the  ancient  Babylonian  Istar  still 
shows  features  of  all  of  them,  but  the  more  of  a  literary 
shape  the  legends  of  the  gods  assumed,  the  more  definite 
became  the  figures  of  the  gods  and  goddesses,  and  when 
the  inhabitants  of  one  country  became  acquainted  with  the 
legends  of  another  where  there  were  different  versions  of 
the  same  god  or  goddess,  a  state  of  confusion  began  which 
was  the  cause  of  no  little  irritation. 

In  Greece  the  marriage  of  Aphrodite  was  celebrated  in 
some  districts  with  Hephsestos,  the  Indian  Agni  and  the 
Roman  Vulcan,  the  god  of  fire,  industry  and  civilization, 
while  in  other  districts  Ares,  the  Roman  Mars,  is  looked 
upon  as  her  spouse,  and  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  their 
union  was  celebrated  with  public  festivals.  The  underlying 
ideas  were  everywhere  the  same,  but  the  forms  which  the 
myth  assumed  were  different,  and  everything  went  well 
so  long  as  the  different  cities  and  provinces  remained  iso- 
lated and  the  various  cults  and  myths  were  not  mixed  up. 
But  when  this  happened  the  union  of  Ares  with  Aphrodite 
was  considered  an  adultery,  and  Hephaestos  (Vulcan)  was 
represented  as  the  irate  husband.  Such  is  the  shape  of  the 
legend  as  we  find  it  in  Homer,  and  similar  collisions  of 
different  myths  have  become  apparent  elsewhere.  This 
confusion  of  different  versions  of  the  myths  finally  produced 
what  may  be  called  infidelity,  which  spread  rapidly  in 
Greece  at  the  period  with  which  we  are  most  familiar. 
We  can  not  doubt  that  even  at  the  time  of  Socrates  there 
was  a  strong  orthodox  party  at  Athens  who  may  have  been 
guided  to  some  extent  by  piety,  but  we  shall  not  go  far 
astray  if  we  consider  that  political  as  well  as  financial 
interests  were  also  at  stake.  The  festivals  must  have  been 
the  source  of  a  rich  income,  and  the  hereditary  priestly 
families  were  very  zealous  to  preserve  both  their  wealth 


32  THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 

and  their  influence.  No  wonder  that  even  a  conservative 
progress  such  as  was  inaugurated  by  Socrates  was  hateful 
to  these  men,  and  that  they  did  not  hesitate  to  have  him 
condemned  as  an  infidel  and  atheist  because  his  philosophy 
tended  to  undermine  the  authority  of  the  established  gods. 

Considering  these  changes  which  have  come  over  the 
religion  of  ancient  Greece,  we  must  be  careful  to  look  upon 
every  myth  as  a  tradition  by  itself,  and  in  this  way  we  shall 
appreciate  its  real  religious  spirit  much  better  than  if  we 
see  it  in  its  connection  with  other  myths.  We  shall  find  that 
the  main  feature  of  the  ancient  pagan  religion  consists  in 
the  glorification  of  the  god-man.  He  wins  a  triumph  or 
gains  a  victory  of  some  kind,  then  celebrates  his  marriage, 
but  succumbs  to  death  to  reappear  in  a  rejuvenated  form. 
The  different  legends  differ  in  details,  sometimes  the  hero 
is  a  god-man,  sometimes  the  main  figure  is  a  god,  and  his 
son  is  the  divine  hero,  a  man  in  whom  the  deity  has  become 
incarnated. 

As  soon  as  the  people  of  one  district  became  acquainted 
with  the  mythology  of  their  neighbors,  the  process  of  a 
religious  disintegration  began  slowly  to  set  in  and  con- 
tinued with  the  spread  of  an  acquaintance  with  other  coun- 
tries. From  time  to  time  priests  and  poets  attempted  to 
reconcile  contradictions,  to  combine  different  versions  and 
to  reconstruct  their  old  traditions  in  adaptation  to  a  wi- 
dened horizon,  but  the  final  doom  of  this  mythological 
phase  of  religion  was  inevitable.  Paganism  broke  down 
and  made  room  for  a  monotheism  which,  however,  pre- 
served the  most  important  feature  common  to  all  myths — 
the  idea  of  the  God-man,  as  a  mediator  between  God  and 
man  and  as  a  saviour.  Apollo,  Dionysus,  Asclepius,  The- 
seus, Heracles,  etc.,  are  sons  of  Zeus,  all  of  them  divine 
personalities,  who  have  come  to  help,  to  liberate,  to  heal,  to 
rescue,  to  ransom  mankind  from  all  evil,  from  death,  dis- 
ease and  oppression.    When  the  polytheism  of  the  gods  had 


OLYMPIAN    MARRIAGES. 


33 


become  worn  out,  the  underlying  idea  was  purged  of  its 
primitive  naturalism  in  the  alembic  of  a  dualistic  philos- 
ophy, finally  resulting  in  an  ascetic  religion. 


NATIVITY  LEGENDS. 


Almost  all  god-men  who  appear  as  saviours  in  India, 
Asia  and  in  Greece  are  supposed  to  have  been  the  object 
of  persecution  at  the  time  of  their  birth.  One  of  the  oldest 
myths  representing  this  typical  feature  is  the  story  of  the 


RHEA  WELCOMING  KRONOS. 

birth  of  Zeus.  His  father  Kronos,  a  prehistoric  deity, 
later  on  identified  with  Chronos,  which  means  "time,"  was 
supposed  to  have  been  in  the  habit  of  swallowing  his  own 
children.     He  was  married  to  the  goddess  Rhea,3   also 

3  The  ancient  goddess  Rhea  or  Cybele  must  not  be  confounded  with  Rea 
Silvia.  The  very  words  are  different  as  appears  from  the  fact  that  in  the 
former  the  e  is  short,  and  in  the  latter,  long.     By  an  unjustified  license  the 


34 


THE  BRIDE  OF   CHRIST. 


called  Cybele,  an  ancient  goddess  who  must  have  been  a 
form  of  the  Asiatic  Istara,  for  even  in  her  later  forms  she 
is  still  endowed  with  many  Oriental  features,  and  is  a 
goddess  not  less  of  life  and  resurrection  than  of  death 
and  the  darker  powers  of  the  nether  world.  This  Rhea 
was  chosen  by  Kronos  as  his  wife,  and  when  the  child  was 
born,  she  took  pity  on  her  offspring  and  gave  her  divine 
husband  a  stone  instead  of  the  infant.  In  the  meantime 
the  little  child-god,  who  was  Zeus,  himself  destined  to 
become  the  head  of  the  new  dynasty  of  the  Greek  gods, 


RHEA  S  DECEPTION. 

was  brought  up  in  a  hiding  place.  He  was  suckled  by  the 
goat  Amalthea  on  the  Island  of  Crete,  and  his  cries  were 
drowned  by  the  noise  of  the  Corybantes,  a  feature  which 
continued  to  be  repeated  in  mystery  plays  representing  the 
birth  of  Zeus,  which  were  performed  on  the  island  of  Crete. 

name  Rea  Silvia  is  frequently  also  spelled  in  the  Greek  fashion  with  an  h 
after  the  R.  Even  Harper's  Latin  Dictionary  and  Dictionary  of  Classical 
Antiquity  are  guilty  of  this  mistake  which  has  crept  in  at  an  early  date. 
But  Baumeister  in  Denkmaler  des  klassischen  Altertums  and  Preller  in  his 
Romischc  Mythologie  adopt  for  the  Roman  goddess  the  Roman  spelling,  Rea. 


OLYMPIAN    MARRIAGES.  35 

The  story  of  the  infancy  of  Zeus  is  typical.  A  similar 
fate  is  recorded  of  the  Indian  Krishna,  and  the  Krishna 
myth  was  transferred  both  upon  Buddha  and  Christ.  A 
slaughter  of  innocent  babes  is  incorporated  into  the  history 


HERMES   SAVING    THE    CHILD   DIONYSUS. 

of  all  three.  We  meet  with  kindred  traditions  everywhere, 
especially  of  those  who  appear  on  earth  in  human  form, 
are  born  in  lowly  circumstances,  among  the  peasants  in 
a  rustic  district,  sometimes  in  a  stable  and  usuallv  in  a 


36 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


cave.    Dionysus  was  cradled  in  a  vannus,  a  food  measure 
from  which  the  cattle  are  fed,  and  the  Christ-child  lay  in 


a  manger. 


MARRIAGE  OF  DIONYSUS  AND  ARIADNE. 


The  underlying  idea  of  all  the  ancient  religions  seems 
to  be  that  the  gods  are  human  and  that  noble  men  are 


MARRIAGE  OF  DIONYSUS  AND  ARIADNE. 


divine.     Nothing  that  is  human  is  deemed  unworthy  of  a 
god.     So  all  the  gods  have  their  consorts,  and  the  gods 


OLYMPIAN    MARRIAGES.  37 

must  pass  through  the  ordeal  of  death  as  well  as  men.  We 
are  not  sufficiently  informed  about  what  might  be  called 
the  dogmas  of  Greek  paganism,  but  we  know  that  there 
were  many  places  famous  for  having  a  tomb  of  Zeus,  which 
can  only  have  been  funerary  shrines  attached  to  Zeus 
temples,  where  the  annual  death  of  the  god  was  bemoaned 
with  a  subsequent  celebration  of  his  victorious  resurrection. 
One  of  the  favorite  gods  whose  name  is  identified  with 
the  idea  of  joy  and  exuberance  of  life  is  Dionysus,  the  god 
of  wine,  and  a  representative  of  the  resurrection.  He  is 
the  son  of  Zeus  and  Semele,  the  latter  being  presumably 
a  goddess  of  the  moon.  Like  all  saviour  gods  he  was  the 
object  of  perfidious  persecution  even  before  he  was  born, 
for  Hera  in  her  jealousy  suggested  to  Semele  the  wish  of 
seeing  her  lover  in  his  full  divinity.  Zeus  being  obliged 
by  his  oath  to  fulfil  her  wish,  granted  her  request,  and  so 
Semele  died  through  her  own  fault,  for  no  one  could  see 
Zeus  and  live,  a  feature  which  is  also  attributed  to  Yahveh, 
the  national  God  of  Israel  Since  the  infant  was  not  quite 
ready  for  birth4  Zeus  took  him  to  himself  concealing  him 
in  his  side,  and  when  the  babe  was  fully  matured  had  him 
cut  out  from  his  thigh.  It  was  on  this  account  that  Diony- 
sus was  called  "the  twice  born."  Like  Zeus  the  Dionysus 
child  had  to  be  brought  up  in  secrecy,  and  the  satyrs  and 
maenads  made  so  much  noise  that  no  one  could  hear  the 
cries  of  the  infant.  We  know  that  this  incident  of  a  bois- 
terous noise-making  crowd  remained  a  characteristic  fea- 
ture of  the  Bacchus  festivals  and  other  kindred  perform- 
ances. 


MARRIAGES  BETWEEN  THE  RACES  OF  GODS  AND  MEN. 

Among  the  art  monuments  which  have  come  down  to 
us,  we  have  representations  of  the  union  between  two  di- 
vine personalities,  a  god  and  a  goddess  such  as  Ares  and 


3§ 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


Aphrodite,  or  Zeus  with  Hera,  Poseidon  with  Amphitrite, 
Dionysus  with  Ariadne,  Perseus  and  Andromeda,  etc.,  both 
parties  being  purely  divine  and  superhuman.  There  are 
other  legends,  however,  which  gradually  acquire  a  greater 
interest  because  thev  are  a  mixture  of  human  and  divine. 


The  human  element  of  the  story  endears  a  hero  to  the 
people. 

In  most  cases  it  will  be  difficult  to  make  a  rigid  distinc- 
tion between  gods  and  heroes,  because  most  heroes  are 
humanized  gods;  for  instance  in  the  original  myth — now 


OLYMPIAN    MARRIAGES.  39 

lost — Heracles  must  have  been  the  sun-god  himself  whose 
wanderings  and  deeds  of  valor  were  related  in  the  story 
of  his  twelve  labors.  But  he  was  more  and  more  human- 
ized until  he  became  a  hero  whose  unusual  virtue,  strength, 
and  courage  had  to  be  explained,  and  who  therefore  was 
deemed  to  be  the  offspring  of  a  god.  In  Greece  as  else- 
where most  of  the  royal  families  derived  their  origin  from 
some  god  or  another. 

The  story  makes  Heracles  the  son  of  Zeus  and  Alk- 
mene,  and  the  kings  of  Argos  who  derived  their  descent 
from  him  are  called  Heraclids.  When  Heracles  after  his 
death  ascended  to  Olympus  he  was  married  to  Hebe,  the 
goddess  of  eternal  youth. 

A  most  beautiful  legend  is  the  story  of  Eros  and  Psyche, 
which  is  of  special  interest  to  all  as  it  represents  the  god 
of  love  in  his  union  with  the  human  soul,  an  idea  which 
occurs  in  the  Christian  Church  where,  too,  the  soul  is 
represented  as  the  bride  of  Christ. 

We  ought  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  story  of  Eros  and 
Psyche  is  a  fairy  tale,  and  it  is  the  only  fairy  tale  which  has 
been  saved  from  the  universal  deluge  that  swept  away  most 
of  the  literary  traces  of  antiquity.  There  is  no  doubt  but 
that  Greece  had  fairy  tales  as  much  as  Germany  and  other 
modern  countries,  but  there  happened  to  be  no  Grimm 
brothers  to  collect  them  and  put  them  in  book  form.  We 
must  remember  that  even  in  Germany  the  interest  in  pop- 
ular stories  or  Mdrchen  is  of  a  very  recent  date,  and  it  was 
actually  by  an  accident  that  the  attention  of  one  of  the 
Grimm  brothers  was  called  to  an  old  Hessian  woman  who 
knew  many  old  traditions  by  heart,  and  she  was  the  last 
one  left,  who  being  illiterate,  repeated  the  stories  as  she 
had  heard  them  from  her  grandmother.  If  the  scholarly 
philologist  had  never  heard  of  her,  the  German  Mdrchen 
would  have  been  lost  forever.  In  Greece  the  legend  of 
Eros  and  Psyche  is  preserved  by  Apuleius,  who  really  did 


4-0  THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 

not  reproduce  the  real  spirit  of  it  for  his  style  is  somewhat 
frivolous,  and  he  does  not  do  justice  to  the  religious  spirit 
that  underlies  this  pretty  and  tender  tale. 

We  must  bear  in  mind  that  fairy  tales  are  the  last  echo 
of  an  ancient  religion.  There  was  a  time  when  they  were 
myths,  and  the  events  related  were  of  the  deepest  meaning 
to  the  listener.  Thus  the  story  of  Eros  and  Psyche  was 
really  a  poetical  explanation  of  the  fate  of  the  soul,  and 
involves  a  promise  of  immortality  of  some  kind,  and  we 
find  similar  notions  pervading  almost  all  other  genuine 
folklore  tales.    The  deities  of  the  ancient  myth  have  been 


EROS   AND  PSYCHE   TOGETHER   WITH   THE   GOOD   SHEPHERD. 
Ancient  Sarcophagus. 

reduced  to  good  and  bad  fairies,  and  events  which  take 
place  in  the  world  beyond  are  localized  in  this  because 
primitive  man  did  not  discriminate  between  the  two  worlds ; 
to  him  both  were  closely  interwoven. 

Sometimes  it  is  easy  to  trace  the  original  myth  in  a 
fairy  tale.  We  learn  for  instance  that  the  good  girl  who 
falls  into  the  well  and  drowns  is  kindly  treated  by  the  fairy 
Dame  Holle  or  Hulda  (who  is  none  other  than  the  Queen  of 
Heaven  and  the  ruler  of  the  world),  while  the  bad  girl 
is  punished  by  her  own  evil  deeds.    In  other  stories,  such 


OLYMPIAN    MARRIAGES.  41 

as  "Little  Red  Riding  Hood,"  we  have  greater  difficulty 
in  recognizing  how  the  bad  wolf  swallows  her  and  has  to 


ORPHEUS  AND   EURIDICE. 


give  her  up  again  when  she  is  rescued  by  the  kind  hunter. 
Fairy  tales  never  stop  to  take  into  consideration  such  im- 


42  THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 

possibilities  as  that  the  wolf  devours  little  Red  Riding 
Hood,  and  the  hunter  cuts  her  out  of  the  wolf's  stomach, 
whence  she  comes  forth  as  young  and  pretty  as  she  was 
before.  The  reason  is  that  here  we  do  not  deal  with  events 
of  this  life,  but  are  confronted  with  facts  that  represent 
the  wonderful  stories  of  the  fate  of  gods  and  men  in  the 
world  to  come. 

The  charming  story  of  Eros  and  Psyche  must  have 
exercised  some  influence  in  the  formation  of  early  Chris- 
tianity, for  we  find  the  typical  group  of  this  loving  couple 
represented  side  by  side  with  the  good  shepherd  on  an 
ancient  sarcophagus. 

The  same  idea  that  underlies  the  story  of  Eros  and 
Psyche  is  the  theme  of  the  myth  of  Orpheus  and  Euridice. 
But  while  it  extends  to  man  the  hope  of  immortality  it  ex- 
plains why  Orpheus  must  leave  his  beloved  wife  in  the 
realms  of  Hades.  She  still  lives ;  he  found  her  and  would 
have  brought  her  back  had  he  not  forgotten  the  divine 
behest  not  to  turn  back  in  his  eagerness  to  see  her,  and  so 
they  remain  forever  separated. 

An  interesting  myth  originated  in  Nauplia,  where  a 
public  festival  celebrated  the  marriage  of  Poseidon,  the 
god  of  the  sea,  with  Amymone,  a  nymph  who  is  always 
represented  as  a  lovely  maiden.  The  local  legend  (as 
preserved  by  Apollonius,  II,  I,  8)  informs  us  that  the 
founder  of  Nauplia  was  deemed  to  be  the  son  of  Poseidon 
and  the  nymph  Amymone.  Amymone  went  into  the  coun- 
try with  a  pitcher  to  look  for  drinking  water,  and  not  being 
able  to  find  a  spring  lost  her  way  in  the  woods  near  the 
shore,  where  she  came  upon  a  satyr  who  attacked  her.  She 
called  for  help  and  Poseidon,  the  god  of  the  sea,  came  to 
her  rescue,  and  having  driven  away  the  satyr,  fell  in  love 
with  the  beautiful  girl  and  married  her.  The  son  of  Amy- 
mone, Nauplius,  was  honored  in  that  locality  as  the  tutelary 
hero  of  the  city,  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  this  legend 


OLYMPIAN    MARRIAGES. 


43 


is  of  purely  physical  origin.  It  has  been  found  that  the 
best  spring  in  the  neighborhood  comes  from  a  mountain 
in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  shore,  and  its  fresh  clear 
waters  gush  in  great  plenty  directly  into  the  sea.  Even  in 
the  remote  days  of  antiquity  it  had  become  necessary  to 
dam  the  spring,  partly  in  order  to  procure  the  water,  and 


MARRIAGE  OF  POSEIDON   AND  AMYMONE. 


partly  to  protect  the  fertile  shore  in  its  vicinity  against 
sudden  inundations.  If  this  was  indeed  the  origin  of  the 
myth  it  would  explain  why  Amymone,  the  nymph  of  a  fresh 
water  spring  is  always  represented  as  a  lovely  maiden  in 
the  flower  of  her  youth. 


44 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


PELEUS  AND  THETIS. 

Perhaps  the  favorite  representation  of  a  marriage  feast 
between  a  goddess  and  a  mortal  is  the  story  of  Thetis,  a 
daughter  of  Nereus,  who  like  Poseidon  was  a  god  of  the 
sea.  The  ancient  myth  became  so  extremely  popular  be- 
cause Homer  inserted  it  into  the  national  epic  of  Greece, 
and  derived  from  it  the  cause  of  the  Greek  expedition 
against  Troy. 

Thetis  was  the  loveliest  of  the  Nereids,  and  Zeus  him- 
self was  in  love  with  her,  but  he  was  prevented  from  mar- 
rying her  because  an  oracle  had  foretold  that  her  son 


PELEUS   WRESTLES   WITH   THETIS.4 

would  be  greater  than  his  father.  Accordingly  Zeus  was 
frightened  because  he  feared  that  as  he  had  deposed  his 
father  Kronos,  so  the  son  of  Thetis  would  in  turn  deprive 
him  of  the  government  of  the  world,  and  he  decided  that 
Thetis  should  not  marry  any  god,  but  be  united  with  a 
mortal,  and  for  this  honor  he  selected  Peleus  of  Aegina, 

4  Thetis  as  a  goddess  of  the  sea  possesses  the  power  in  common  with 
Proteus  of  changing  her  shape.  Flames  come  out  from  her  shoulders  and  two 
lions  (in  the  illustration  exceedingly  small)  try  to  bite  Peleus,  and  Chiron 
comes  to  his  rescue.  While  other  centaurs  are  represented  as  savage  he  was 
supposed  to  be  endowed  with  wisdom,  and  this  attribute  is  indicated  in  pic- 
tures by  representing  him  with  human  feet.  The  branch  of  a  tree  and  two 
little  satyrs  have  reference  to  his  forest  life.  The  defeat  of  Thetis  is  shown 
by  the  flight  of  a  Nereid  here  called  Dontmeda,  and  Thetis  herself  has  her  feet 
turned  backward. 


OLYMPIAN    MARRIAGES. 


45 


PELEUS  AND  THETIS. 
Amphora  from  Rhodes. 


Amphora  Complete. 


46 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


king  of  Thessaly,  who  was  himself  the  son  of  Aiacus  and 
the  nymph  Endeis,  the  daughter  of  Chiron. 

The  version  of  Homer  appears  to  be  of  a  comparatively 
recent  date,  for  we  have  illustrations  according  to  which 
Peleus  has  to  gain  his  divine  wife  by  conquest.  Thetis  re- 
sents being  married  to  a  mortal  and  yields  only  on  the 
condition  that  he  would  conquer  her.     This  combat  is  re- 


APHRODITE  PERSUADING  HELEN. 

Pytho,  i.  e.,  Persuasion,  is  seated  above  Helen  while  Eros  stands 
by  Paris  who  is  also  called  Alexandros. 

peatedly  represented  in  some  ancient  vase  pictures.  Later 
illustrations,  however,  show  that  she  accepts  the  engage- 
ment with  Peleus  willingly,  and  the  artist  even  represents 
her  love  of  Peleus  in  her  attitude,  showing  how  she  courts 
his  arrival  as  a  welcome  husband.  The  scene  is  represented 
on  the  so-called  Portland  vase,  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
pieces  of  art  which  has  come  down  to  us  and  is  now  pre- 


U  |N  I  V  t  n  -* 

Of 


. 


OLYMPIAN   MARRIAGES. 


47 


THE   PORTLAND  VASE.     REPRESENTING  THE   MARRIAGE  OF  THETIS. 


48 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


OLYMPIAN    MARRIAGES.  49 

served  in  the  British  Museum.  A  little  cupid  flutters  above 
Thetis,  and  Nereus,  her  father,  watches  the  arrival  of 
Peleus. 

Another  vase,  commonly  called  the  Frangois  vase,  also 
represents  the  marriage  of  Thetis,  and  in  two  stately  rows 
we  see  the  several  gods  invited  to  take  part  at  the  festival 
approaching  the  temple  where  they  are  welcomed  by  Peleus 
while  the  bride  waits  in  the  interior  of  the  building. 

We  need  scarcely  mention  the  well-known  incidents 
which  legend  connects  with  the  story.  In  order  to  avoid 
trouble  the  gods  do  not  invite  Eris,  the  goddess  of  strife, 
but  she  revenges  herself  for  this  slight  by  rolling  a 
golden  apple  among  the  goddesses  with  the  inscription 
"For  the  most  beautiful."  This  starts  a  quarrel  which 
Zeus  decides  through  Paris  who  gives  the  apple  to  Aphro- 
dite, and  thus  offends  both  Athene  and  Hera.  As  a  reward 
Aphrodite  promises  Paris  that  for  his  bride  he  may  have 
Helen,  the  wife  of  Agamemnon,  known  as  the  most  beauti- 
ful woman  on  earth,  and  when  Paris  succeeds  by  the  aid 
of  Aphrodite  in  eloping  with  Helen,  the  Greeks  unite  in  an 
expedition  of  revenge  to  bring  her  back  to  Greece. 

Helen  is  a  humanized  deity  as  much  as  Heracles,  for 
Homer  speaks  of  Menelaos  to  whom  she  was  married  as 
the  husband  of  a  goddess,  and  her  name  is  apparently  an 
archaic  form  of  the  word  "Selene"  which  means  "the 
moon." 

LEGENDS  OF  ROME. 

In  the  ancient  history  of  Rome  Mars  is  reported  to  have 
been  the  father  of  Romulus  and  Remus  by  a  vestal  virgin 
called  Rea  Silvia,  also  known  as  Ilia.  According  to  the 
popular  Roman  tradition  recorded  in  the  first  book  of  Livy, 
Rea  Silvia  (or  Ilia)  was  the  daughter  of  Numitor,  the 
exiled  or  deposed  king  of  Alba  Longa.  His  younger  brother 
had  usurped  the  throne,  and  in  order  to  assure  himself 


5o 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


against  the  rights  of  his  elder  brother  caused  the  latter's 
daughter  to  be  made  a  vestal  virgin,  and  transferred  to  the 
temple  of  Vesta.  But  here  a  divine  destiny  interfered. 
Mars  selected  her  as  his  spouse,  and  the  virgin  Rea  Silvia 
bore  him  the  twins  Romulus  and  Remus.  The  rest  of  the 
legend  is  sufficiently  known ;  the  irate  uncle  had  the  infants 


MARS  AND  REA  SILVIA. 


exposed  in  the  woods,  but  a  she-wolf  nursed  them,  and  this 
incident  has  become  the  emblem  of  Rome. 

The  legend  of  Aphrodite's  marriage  with  Anchises 
would  probably  have  been  forgotten  had  not  iEneas,  their 
son,  been  adopted  as  the  ancestor  of  the  Gens  Julia,  the 
imperial  family  of  Rome. 


OLYMPIAN    MARRIAGES.  5 1 

The  time  when  these  several  legends  of  the  marriage 
of  the  gods  were  really  part  of  the  religious  life  of  the 
people,  lies  in  an  almost  prehistoric  time,  and  we  have  no 
real  and  direct  information  concerning  their  significance, 
but  when  we  try  to  reconstruct  the  significance  which  these 
myths  had  we  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  was  a  pe- 
riod in  which  they  were  dear  to  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
and  that  the  marriage  festivals  of  these  gods  and  goddesses 


THE  SHE  WOLF  OF  THE  ROMAN   CAPITOL. 

The  two  children  have  been  restored  but  the  wolf  is  ancient 
and  in  spite  of  its  archaic  crudeness,  a  remarkable  piece  of  art. 
Archaeologists  assume  that  it  is  the  same  statue  that  was  set  up 
at  Rome  in  the  year  295  B.  C. 

were  celebrated  in  their  special  localities  with  genuine  de- 
votion and  with  a  natural  unsophisticated  piety. 

When  Christianity  superseded  paganism,  it  incorpo- 
rated into  its  own  doctrinal  structure  several  of  the  most 
fundamental  pagan  ideas,  among  them  the  doctrines  of  the 
god-man  as  a  saviour,  of  the  dying  god  who  rises  from 
death  to  new  life,  and  also  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 


52 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


No  trace  of  these  theories  can  be  found  in  the  religion  of 
ancient  Israel  as  recorded  in  the  Old  Testament,  while  the 
gentiles  clung  to  them  with  great  tenacity.  In  Christianity 
they  appear  completely  transformed  not  only  through  the 
rigid  monotheism  of  its  Jewish  traditions  but  also  by  means 
of  the  ascetic  tendencies  so  prominent  in  the  second  and 
third  centuries  of  Church  history;  and  yet  the  idea  of  the 


VENUS  AND  ANCHISES. 


saviour's  marriage,  though  absolutely  obliterated  in  the 
dogmatic  formation  of  the  Christian  belief,  was  also  pre- 
served at  least  in  certain  allusions  to  Christ  as  the  bride- 
groom, in  the  report  of  the  marriage  of  the  Lamb  in  the 
Revelations  of  St.  John,  and  in  the  legend  of  St.  Catharine, 
the  bride  of  Christ. 


ST.  CATHARINE. 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


WE  have  seen  that  the  tradition  of  the  bride  of  Christ 
has  its  ultimate  foundation  in  the  myths  of  pre- 
Christian  saviours;  but  we  noted  at  the  same  time  that 
according  to  the  rigidly  ascetic  traditions  of  the  early 
Church  this  marriage  was  to  be  a  purely  spiritual  and 
symbolic  one;  and  that  the  legend  finally  crystallized 
around  the  name  of  Catharine,  "the  pure  one/'  in  spite  of 
the  incongruity  of  the  age  in  which  the  best  known  saint 
of  this  name  was  supposed  to  have  lived.  In  the  domain 
of  myth  as  well  as  legend  we  move  in  an  atmosphere  that  is 
above  time  and  space,  and  so  there  is  no  inconsistency  in 
the  fact  that  St.  Catharine  of  Alexandria  lived  at  the  end 
of  the  third  century,  more  than  two  hundred  years  after 
the  death  of  Jesus.  This  discrepancy  only  helped  to  denote 
the  entire  absence  of  carnal  love,  which  fact  is  further 
emphasized  by  representing  the  mystic  marriage  usually 
(though  not  always)  as  taking  place  between  the  Christ 
child  and  an  adult  virgin. 

As  to  the  historical  facts  of  St.  Catharine's  life  a  crit- 
ical investigation  of  ancient  records  yields  no  result.  There 
are  quite  a  number  of  saints  that  bear  the  name  Catharine, 
but  the  bride  of  Christ  was  originally  St.  Catharine  of 
Alexandria.  Among  other  saints  of  the  same  name  the 
best  known  is  St.  Catharine  of  Siena,  and  since  the  people 
of  Siena  did  not  want  to  stay  behind  the  Alexandrians, 


54 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


they  too  claimed  for  their  saint  the  honor  of  a  mystic  mar- 
riage with  Christ  which  has  been  duly  represented  in  the 
pictures  of  the  saint's  life. 


MARRIAGE   OF   THE    CATHARINES. 

By  Borgognone,  about  1524.  (National  Gallery,  London.)  The 
infant  Christ  holds  a  ring  in  each  hand  and  while  placing  one  on 
the  finger  of  Catharine  of  Alexandria  extends  the  other  ring 
towards  the  nun,  Catharine  of  Siena. 


ST.  CATHARINE  OF  SIENA. 


Though  it  may  appear  anachronistic,  we  will  speak 
first  of  St.  Catharine  of  Siena,  because  she  is  an  historical 


ST.    CATHARINE. 


55 


personality.  She  was  a  most  striking  figure  in  the  Middle 
Ages  and  did  not  fail  to  impress  the  people  with  her  extra- 
ordinary powers  as  a  saint.     She  lived  1347- 1380,  at  the 


a'     si    * 

1   z 

^-...   > 

THE  MARRIAGE  OF  ST.   CATHARINE. 

By  Fra  Bartolommeo,  1475-1517.     (Louvre.)     Because  of  the  nun's 
habit  this  can  only  be  Catharine  of  Siena. 


time  when  the  idea  of  the  mystic  marriage  had  already 
taken  deep  root  in  the  hearts  of  the  faithful.  Being  the 
daughter  of  a  poor  dyer,  she  rose  from  the  humblest  sur- 


56 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


roundings.  As  early  as  in  her  thirteenth  year  she  joined 
the  Dominican  order  in  which  solely  because  of  her  sanc- 
tity and  in  spite  of  her  lack  of  culture  she  took  a  leading 
position  and  played  a  prominent  part  even  in  the  historical 
events  of  the  age.    Popular  belief  naturally  fastened  upon 


ST.    CATHARINE   OF   SIENA 

By  Lorenzo  da  San  Severino  (latter  half  of  the  15th  cent.)  On 
the  nimbus  around  the  head  of  the  kneeling  St.  Catharine  are  the 
words  "Santa  Katrina  de  Sene."  Other  saints  in  the  picture  are 
Dominic,  Augustine,  and  Demetrius  of  Spoleto. 


her  all  the  honors  of  her  namesake  of  Alexandria,  and  her 
mystic  marriage  has  been  pictured  in  her  home,  the  Domi- 
nican convent  at  Siena,  and  by  Umbrian  painters. 


ST.    CATHARINE.  57 

The  Pall  Mall  Magazine  in  a  series  of  articles  entitled 
"Half  Holidays  at  the  National  Gallery/'  in  an  attempt  to 
make  the  subject  intelligible  to  the  modern  Protestant 
spirit,  makes  the  following  comment  upon  San  Severino's 
picture : 

"The  mystic  marriage  which  forms  the  subject  of  this 
picture,  where  the  infant  Christ  is  placing  the  ring  on  her 
finger,  suggests  the  secret  of  her  power.  Once  when  she 
was  fasting  and  praying,  Christ  himself  appeared  to  her, 
she  said,  and  gave  her  his  heart.  For  love  was  the  keynote 
of  her  religion,  and  the  mainspring  of  her  life.  In  no 
merely  figurative  sense  did  she  regard  herself  as  the  spouse 
of  Christ,  but  dwelt  upon  the  bliss,  beyond  all  mortal  hap- 
piness, which  she  enjoyed  in  communion  with  her  Lord. 
The  world  has  not  lost  its  ladies  of  the  race  of  St.  Catha- 
rine, beautiful  and  pure  and  holy,  who  live  lives  of  saintly 
mercy  in  the  power  of  human  and  heavenly  love." 

It  stands  to  reason  that  the  rivalry  of  the  two  Cath- 
arines led  to  acrimonious  disputes  which  in  those  days  were 
taken  more  seriously  than  the  later  born  generation  of  a 
scientific  age  can  appreciate.  St.  Catharine  of  Alexandria 
being  the  older  one  had  a  prior  and  a  better  claim  and 
could  no  longer  be  ousted  from  her  eminent  position,  so  a 
compromise  was  made  in  which  the  two  Catharines  were 
regarded  as  being  both  genuine  brides  of  Christ,  yet  at  the 
same  time  it  was  understood  that  ecclesiastical  authority 
would  henceforth  tolerate  no  other  saints  to  aspire  for  the 
same  honor. 


ST.    CATHARINE   OF   ALEXANDRIA. 

From  a  purely  scientific  standpoint  St.  Catharine  of 
Alexandria  is  an  unhistorical  figment,  but  for  all  that  the 
legend  is  quite  circumstantial  in  details.  She  is  reported 
as  being  of  royal  parentage  and  as  having  received  an  un- 


58 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


usually  good  education.    She  is  revered  by  the  Church  as 
the  patron  of  philosophy,  science  and  learning,  and  some 


ST.  CATHARINE  OF  ALEXANDRIA. 
By  Ghirlandajo,  1449-1494.    In  the  Borghese  Palace  at  Rome. 

philosophical  schools,  as  for  instance  the  University  of 
Paris,  have  selected  her  as  their  tutelary  saint. 


ST.  CATHARINE  OF  ALEXANDRIA. 
By  Andrea  del  Sarto,  1486-1531.    In  the  Cathedral  at  Pisa. 


6o 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


The  legend  further  asserts  that  Emperor  Maxentius, 
anxious  to  establish  the  truth  of  idolatry,  arranged  a  public 
debate  between  her  and  the  most  prominent  pagan  sages, 
but  she  defeated  them  in  every  way  so  as  to  humiliate  their 
authority.  Incensed  at  her  success  the  Emperor  first  tried 
to  influence  her  by  threats  and  flattery,  but  when  he  saw 


THE   HOLY   FAMILY  AND   ST.    CATHARINE. 
By  Ltica  di  Signorelli,  1441-1523.    In  the  Pitti  Palace  at  Florence. 

that  nothing  could  move  her,  he  ordered  her  to  be  tortured 
on  a  spiked  wheel,  and  then  to  be  beheaded.  The  date  of 
her  martyrdom  has  been  fixed  on  November  25,  307. 

The  oldest  reference  to  St.  Catharine  is  made  in  the 
Menologhtm  Basilianum,  a  collection  of  legends  compiled 


ST.    CATHARINE. 


6l 


for  Emperor  Basil  II  who  died  in  886.    In  this  she  is  called 
Aikaterina,  and  the  report  runs  as  follows : 

"The  martyr  Aikaterina  was  the  daughter  of  a  rich  and 


THE    HOLY    FAMILY   AND    ST.    CATHARINE. 
By  Giacobo  Francia. 

noble  prince  of  Alexandria.     She  was  very  beautiful,  and 
being  at  the  same  time  highly  talented,  she  devoted  herself 


62 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


to  Greek  literature  as  well  as  to  the  study  of  the  languages 
of  all  nations,  and  so  she  became  wise  and  learned.  And  it 
happened  that  the  Greeks  held  a  festival  in  honor  of  their 
idols;  and  seeing  the  slaughter  of  animals,  she  was  so 


'  ">'                    f*'  v-w."':' 

w  if  *                 ^aK    1 

H                         vif                        f 
W  -                    HBm  -t                          i 

3y '        JR . 

W    f 

* 

1 

B^SS* 

<,§ 

q  en 
<    o 

J     «5 

--     n) 

U 

O     « 

3 


PQ 


greatly  moved  that  she  went  to  the  King  Maximinus  and 
expostulated  with  him  in  these  words :  'Why  hast  thou  left 
the  living  God  to  worship  lifeless  idols  ?'  But  the  Emperor 
caused  her  to  be  thrown  into  prison,  and  to  be  punished 
severely.   He  then  ordered  fifty  orators  to  be  brought,  and 


ST.    CATHARINE.  63 

bade  them  to  reason  with  Aikaterina,  and  confute  her, 
threatening  to  burn  them  all  if  they  should  fail  to  over- 
power her.  The  orators,  however,  when  they  saw  them- 
selves vanquished,  received  baptism,  and  were  burnt  forth- 
with, while  she  was  beheaded." 

The  report  of  the  Menologium  has  been  elaborated  in 
other  versions  of  which  we  have  two  in  Greek,  one  by 
Simeon  Metaphrastes  (ioth  century),  another  by  Athana- 
sius.  Upon  the  latter  the  Latin  legend  of  St.  Catharine  is 
founded,  from  which  again  all  later  versions  in  Italian, 
French,  and  Old  English  have  been  derived. 

mielot's  account. 

We  must  make  special  mention  of  the  version  of  the 
St.  Catharine  legend  which  was  made  by  Jean  Mielot  at 
the  request  of  Philip  the  Good  of  Burgundy,  because  in 
addition  to  the  incidents  mentioned  above  it  contains  the 
story  of  the  mystic  marriage  of  St.  Catharine  to  the  Sa- 
viour which,  however,  is  believed  to  have  been  derived  from 
an  older  source. 

Mielot  tells  us  of  the  marriage  of  King  Costus  with 
Queen  Sabinella  and  the  birth  of  their  daughter,  Catharine, 
who  from  a  tender  age  was  most  carefully  educated  in  all 
the  arts  and  sciences.  She  distinguished  herself  in  all  vir- 
tues, especially  in  wisdom  and  moral  purity.  King  Costus 
died,  and  Queen  Sabinella  retired  to  Mount  Ararat  where 
she  was  converted  to  Christianity  by  Ananias,  a  godly 
hermit.  When  she  tried  to  induce  her  daughter  to  adopt 
the  new  faith  the  latter  defended  paganism  with  all  the 
arguments  of  profane  science,  and  refused  to  be  convinced. 

Catharine  had  scarcely  reached  her  eighteenth  year 
when  the  grandees  of  the  empire  sought  her  hand  in  mar- 
riage, and  her  mother  was  anxious  to  have  her  choose  a 
good  husband  who  would  be  a  worthy  leader  and  could 


64 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


protect  the  kingdom  against  all  its  enemies.  But  Catharine 
refused  all  suitors  and  said :  "Bring  me  a  bridegroom  who 
is  as  learned,  as  beautiful,  as  noble,  as  rich, — in  short,  is 


of  equal  rank  with  me,  and  I  am  ready  to  accept  him  for 
my  husband."  The  story  continues  in  the  modernized  ver- 
sion of  Marius  Sepet  as  follows: 

"One  evening  when  mother  and  daughter  lay  sleeping 


ST.   CATHARINE. 


65 


together,  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  the  glorious  Virgin  Mary, 
appeared  to  them  surrounded  by  a  great  host  of  patriarchs, 
prophets,  apostles,  martyrs,  confessors,  virgins,  and  many 
other  saints,  all  of  whom  shone  in  radiant  beauty.  The 
Virgin  Mary  approached  St.  Catharine  and  said  to  her: 
"  'Look,  my  daughter !  all  these  are  kings,  and  indeed 
the  greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  my  Son,  the  Emperor  of 
Glory.     I  know  that  thou  art  still  unwedded.     If  thou 


f: 

M  VB       {g 

1 

t^rH 

' . 

THE  VIRGIN  ENTHRONED. 

Sienese  of  late  fifteenth  century.    The  Virgin  is  attended  by  saints 
among  whom  is  St.  Catharine. 

wouldst  have  any  of  these  for  a  bridegroom  choose  the 
one  which  best  pleases  thee  and  I  will  bring  it  about  that 
thy  desire  shall  be  fulfilled!' 

"But  St.  Catharine  answered  that  she  did  not  wish  to 
marry  any  one  of  them.  Thereupon  Jesus  Christ  himself, 
the  Emperor  of  Glory,  appeared  unto  her  in  the  presence 
of  his  gentle  mother  and  a  countless  host  of  angels.    Mary, 


66  THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 

the  Blessed  Virgin,  said  to  Catharine,  'Wouldst  thou 
choose  this  one  for  thy  Bridegroom?' 

"And  when  Catharine  beheld  his  beauty,  power,  and 
wisdom,  she  fervently  replied,  'Yea !  Him  do  I  desire  who- 
soever he  may  be, — him  and  none  other/  But  Sabinella, 
her  mother,  looked  at  her  with  astonishment  and  said,  'How 
darest  thou  select  for  thy  bridegroom  one  whom  so  many 
kings  obey?  Be  content  to  choose  one  of  the  other  nobles 
for  thy  husband,  for  all  are  great  and  mighty  princes.' 

"But  the  daughter  sighed  and  answered,  'Dear  mother 
mine !  blame  me  not  that  I  should  wish  this  one  for  my  hus- 
band, for  I  see  none  here  who  far  surpass  myself  in  all 
things  excepting  him  alone.  Oh,  go  at  once  and  seek  out 
the  Empress,  his  mother,  that  she  may  soften  his  heart 
and  that  he  may  accept  me  as  his  bride,  for  if  I  may  not 
be  his  handmaiden,  I  will  never  marry  another.' 

"The  mother  went  at  once  to  that  Lady  and  offered 
her  daughter  to  her  as  bride  for  her  Son,  the  Emperor. 
The  Queen  of  Heaven  and  of  the  angels  then  spoke  to  her 
well-beloved  Son,  'Dearest  Son,  desirest  thou  this  maiden 
for  thy  bride?'  But  he  answered,  'No,  my  Mother,  I  desire 
her  not.  Rather  remove  her  from  thee,  for  she  is  not  a 
Christian.  I  am  the  King  of  Christians,  and  must  never 
have  a  pagan  bride.  But  if  she  will  be  baptized,  I  give  her 
my  word  that  I  shall  betroth  her  soon  afterwards  by  giving 
her  a  ring  as  to  my  spouse.' 

"After  this  miraculous  vision  had  vanished,  Queen 
Sabinella  and  her  daughter  awoke  and  told  each  other  what 
they  had  seen  as  an  actual  occurrence.  But  from  this  time 
on  Catharine  wept  constantly  and  said  that  she  would 
nevermore  find  rest  until  she  had  received  the  Emperor  of 
Glory  as  her  husband.  Impatient  to  be  baptized  she  ur- 
gently besought  her  mother  to  take  her  at  once  without 
delay  to  the  godly  hermit,  and  her  request  was  complied 
with. 


ST.   CATHARINE. 


67 


"When  they  had  come  together  to  the  hermitage  the 
mother  told  Ananias  privately  the  vision  as  related  above. 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  ST.   CATHARINE. 
From  the  illumined  text  of  Miclot's  Vie  de  Ste.  Catherine,  as  re- 
vised and  modernized  by  M.  Sepet. 

The  pious  hermit,  suddenly  enlightened  by  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  called  Catharine  and  her  mother  and  said  to  them, 


68  THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 

'The  Emperor  whom  you  have  seen  was  our  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ  and  the  Queen  was  his  mother,  the  glorious  Virgin 
Mary.  The  hosts  which  you  saw  with  them  were  their 
companions,  the  angels  and  saints  of  Paradise/ 

"The  godly  hermit  added  that  if  Catharine  wished  for 
her  bridgroom  this  Heavenly  King  whom  she  saw  in  her 
vision,  she  must  needs  become  a  Christian." 

The  story  then  proceeds  to  tell  how  Catharine  became 
a  pious  Christian  and  received  baptism  at  the  hands  of 
the  saintly  Ananias,  after  which  follows  an  account  of  the 
mystic  marriage: 

"Once,  when  St.  Catharine  was  praying  fervently  in 
her  chamber,  Jesus  Christ,  the  King  of  Glory,  appeared 
before  her,  clad  in  fine  apparel  and  acompanied  by  a  great 
throng  of  angels  and  saints.  As  testimony  that  he  accepted 
St.  Catharine  for  his  bride  he  placed  a  real  ring  upon  her 
finger  and  promised  to  perform  great  things  for  her  if  she 
would  remain  faithful  in  her  love,  and  when  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  had  disappeared  she  knew  at  once  that  the 
vision  was  to  be  understood  in  a  spiritual  sense.  She  was 
completely  converted  to  a  great  divine  love  and  reverent 
tenderness  toward  Jesus  Christ,  her  spouse.  From  this 
time  forth  she  often  received  great  tasks  of  consolation 
from  him,  and  in  order  that  she  might  take  comfort  in  him 
more  fully  she  consecrated  all  her  time  and  all  her  study 
and  meditations  to  prayer  and  the  reading  and  contempla- 
tion of  Holy  Scripture.  As  formerly  she  had  studied  most 
zealously  and  had  become  learned  in  vast  numbers  of  vol- 
umes of  profane  science,  now,  after  her  conversion  she 
applied  herself  to  the  books  of  Holy  Scripture,  especially 
to  the  writings  of  the  Evangelists,  giving  to  these  her  atten- 
tion above  all  else.  She  said  to  herself :  'Alas,  sinner  that 
I  am,  how  long  have  I  wasted  my  time  in  the  darkness  of 
profane  books!  Oh  Catharine,  here  is  the  Gospel  of  thy 
spouse.     Put  all  thy  heart  upon  its  teachings  as  faithfully 


ST.    CATHARINE. 


69 


and  constantly  as  thou  canst  in  order  that  thou  mayest 
attain  the  light  of  truth/ 


ST.  CATHARINE  TEACHING. 
By  Masolino,  1403- 1440. 


"Reflecting-  day  by  day  within  her  own  heart,   and 
questioning  also  day  by  day  the  servants  of  our  Lord  Jesus 


70  THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 

Christ,  with  whom  she  loved  to  speak  of  him,  she  became 
a  wonderful  teacher  of  truth.  Some  say  that  the  ring 
with  which  Jesus  Christ  had  wedded  her  was  received  and 
preserved  in  the  City  of  Alexandria,  of  Egypt,  after  the 
death  and  passion  of  Madame  St.  Catharine." 

We  have  not  been  able  to  compare  this  modernized  ver- 
sion with  Jean  Mielot's  manuscript,  but  we  would  be  inter- 
ested to  know  whether  the  original  contains  mention  of  St. 
Catharine  taking  cognizance  at  once  that  "the  vision  was 
to  be  understood  in  a  spiritual  sense."  In  apparent  con- 
tradiction to  it  are  other  passages  which  insist  on  the  real- 
ity of  both  the  vision  and  the  marriage,  in  token  of  which 
a  real  ring  is  left  on  her  finger.  According  to  the  ascetic 
atmosphere  of  Christian  mythology  the  spirituality  of  this 
marriage  relation  is  a  matter  of  course,  and  so  the  narrator 
of  the  legend  impresses  his  audience  with  the  belief  that 
St.  Catharine  is  not  merely  the  bride  of  Christ  in  the  sense 
that  any  nun  may  be  so  considered,  but  in  the  special  and 
true  meaning  of  the  word. 

In  some  versions  of  the  legend  it  is  claimed  that  when 
St.  Catharine  was  tortured  on  the  wheel  no  blood  came 
from  her  wounds,  but  milk,  which  is  characteristic  of  her  as 
the  representation  of  absolute  purity,  because  according  to 
the  Old  Testament  notion  blood  is  regarded  as  impure. 

According  to  Mielot  St.  Catharine  addresses  Christ  in 
a  prayer  before  her  execution,  and  he  answers  her  from 
out  of  a  cloud  with  these  words:  "Come  thou,  my  much 
beloved,  come  my  bride!  The  gate  of  heaven  is  open  to 
thee.  The  dwelling  of  eternal  peace  is  prepared  for  thee 
and  awaits  thy  coming.  The  glorious  hosts  of  virgins 
descend  with  great  rejoicing  to  thee  with  a  crown  of  vic- 
tory. Come  therefore  and  be  assured  that  I  will  graciously 
grant  thee  all  those  favors  which  thou  askest.  Yea  I  prom- 
ise to  extend  all  help,  assistance  and  comfort  which  thou 
askest  me  also  to  those  who  in  pious  faith  revere  thy  pas- 


ST.   CATHARINE. 


71 


sion  and  will  call  on  thee  in  danger  and  extremity.    I  prom- 
ise to  them  all  these  benefits  and  the  grace  of  heaven.,, 
According  to  the  legend  Mt.  Sinai  became  the  burial 


ST.  CATHARINE  S  DELIVERANCE. 
From  Mielot's  Vie  de  Ste.  Catherine  as  revised  and  modernized  by  M.  Sepet. 


place  of  St.  Catharine's  body,  and  Marius  Sepet  claims 
that  the  beginning  of  the  public  worship  of  St.  Catharine 


J2  THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 

dates  from  the  discovery  of  her  tomb  on  Mt.  Sinai  in  the 
eighth  century. 

He  says: 

"The  worship  of  Catharine  spread  very  rapidly  among 
the  Christians  of  the  Orient  and  in  the  whole  Greek  Church, 
whence  it  penetrated  into  the  Occident  and  was  received 
also  in  the  Latin  Church.  This  happened  before  the  cru- 
sades, for  the  French  National  Library  contains  two  manu- 
scripts of  the  old  Latin  legend  dating  from  the  time  of  the 
first  crusade.  The  crusades  by  encouraging  and  facili- 
tating pilgrimages  to  the  holy  places  of  the  Orient,  have 
undoubtedly  contributed  much  to  the  spread  of  the  fame 
and  the  worship  of  St.  Catharine,  whose  relics  rest  in  a 
monastery  on  Mt.  Sinai/' 

THE  VERSION   OF  THE  ROMAN  BREVIARY. 

The  Roman  Breviary  for  November  25,  the  day  of 
our  saint,  contains  the  account  of  St.  Catharine's  life,  as 
approved  by  the  Church,  and  reads  in  the  English  version 
as  follows : 

"This  Katharine  was  a  noble  maiden  of  Alexandria, 
who  from  her  earliest  years  joined  the  study  of  the  liberal 
arts  with  fervent  faith,  and  in  a  short  while  came  to  such 
a  height  of  holiness  and  learning,  that  when  she  was  eigh- 
teen years  of  age,  she  prevailed  over  the  chiefest  wits. 
When  she  saw  many  diversely  tormented  and  haled  to 
death  by  command  of  Maximin,  because  they  professed 
the  Christian  religion,  she  went  boldly  unto  him  and  re- 
buked him  for  his  savage  cruelty,  bringing  forward  like- 
wise most  sage  reasons  why  the  faith  of  Christ  should  be 
needful  for  salvation. 

"Maximin  marveled  at  her  wisdom,  and  bade  keep  her, 
while  he  gathered  together  the  most  learned  men  from  all 
quarters  and  offered  them  a  great  reward  if  they  would 


ST.    CATHARINE. 


73 


confute  Katharine  and  bring  her  from  believing  in  Christ 
to  worship  idols.    But  the  event  fell  contrariwise,  for  many 


ST.   CATHARINE   IN   A   CONTROVERSY. 
By  Pinturicchio,  1454-1513.    In  the  Appartamento  Borgia,  Rome. 

of  the  philosophers  who  came  to  dispute  with  her  were 
overcome  by  the  force  and  skill  of  her  reasoning  so  that 


OF  THE  \ 

university) 


74 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


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■MB                                            «flHff  ■  /^^^HiH^lfll^^^^^^^^^l 

^Li  in  - 

THE  MARTYRDOM  OF  ST.  CATHARINE. 
By  Luini,  1470-1535.    In  Monastero  Maggiore  at  Milan. 


ST.    CATHARINE. 


75 


THE  MARTYRDOM  OF  ST.  CATHARINE. 
By  Luini,  1470- 1535.     In  Monastero  Maggiore  at  Milan. 


76 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


the  love  of  Christ  Jesus  was  kindled  in  them,  and  they 
were  content  even  to  die  for  his  sake.  Then  did  Maximin 
strive  to  beguile  Katharine  with  fair  words  and  promises, 
and  when  he  found  it  was  lost  pains,  he  caused  her  to  be 
hided,  and  bruised  with  leadladen  whips,  and  so  cast  into 
prison,  and  neither  meat  nor  drink  given  to  her  for  a  space 
of  eleven  days. 

"At  that  time  Maximin's  wife  and  Porphyry  the  Cap- 
tain of  his  host,  went  to  the  prison  to  see  the  damsel,  and 
at  her  preaching  believed  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  were  after- 


ST.   CATHARINE  S  MARTYRDOM. 
From  the  Little  Pictorial  Lives  of  the  Saints. 


wards  crowned  with  martyrdom.  Then  was  Katharine 
brought  out  of  ward,  and  a  wheel  was  set,  wherein  were  fas- 
tened many  and  sharp  blades,  so  that  her  virgin  body  might 
thereby  be  most  direfully  cut  and  torn  in  pieces,  but  in  a 
little  while,  as  Katharine  prayed,  this  machine  was  broken 
in  pieces,  at  the  which  marvel  many  believed  in  Christ. 
But  Maximin  was  hardened  in  his  godlessness  and  cruelty, 
and  commanded  to  behead  Katharine.  She  bravely  offered 
her  neck  to  the  stroke  and  passed  away  hence  to  receive 


ST.    CATHARINE. 


77 


the  twain  crowns  of  maidenhood  and  martyrdom,  upon  the 
25th  day  of  November.  Her  body  was  marvelously  laid 
by  Angels  upon  Mount  Sinai  in  Arabia/' 

Note  here  that  in  the  Breviary  the  pagan  prince  is  called 
Maximin,  while  in  the  legend  he  is  identified  with  Maxen- 
tius,  who  was  beaten  by  Constantine  in  the  battle  of  Saxa 
Rubra,  and  after  his  defeat  was  drowned  in  the  Tiber.  In 
this  way  the  legend  of  St.  Catharine  had  become  closely 
affiliated  with  the  final  victory  of  Christianity. 

It  is  impossible  to  tell  how  old  the  legend  of  the  mystic 


BURIAL  OF  ST.   CATHARINE. 
By  Luini,  1470-1535. 


marriage  may  be,  but  it  seems  sure  that  as  soon  as  it  ap- 
peared on  record  it  spread  with  gread  rapidity  and  became 
very  soon  afterwards  wellnigh  the  most  popular  of  all 
legends.  Its  popularity  kept  at  its  height  between  the 
fourteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  and  we  may  not  go 
astray  if  we  assume  that  the  currency  of  the  unwritten 
tales  prepared  the  rapid  acceptation  of  the  legend  when  it 
first  made  its  appearance  in  literary  shape. 

The  popularity  of  St.  Catharine  is  proved  by  the  fre- 


78 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


quent  occurrence  of  the  name  and  also  by  the  belief  that 
she  belongs  to  the  most  powerful  intercessors  with  God. 


ST.  CATHARINE  LIBERATED  BY  ANGELS. 
By  Masolino,  1403- 1440. 

Jeanne  d'Arc  was  convinced  that  she  was  especially  sup- 
ported by  the  Virgin  Mary,  the  Archangel  Michael,  and 


ST.   CATHARINE.  79 

the  two  saints  Margaret  and  Catharine.     It  is  reported 
that  she  obtained  the  miraculous  sword  which  she  used 


ST.    CATHARINE. 
Detail  from  the  above. 


in  battle  from  St.   Catharine's  chapel  at  Fierbois,  after 
receiving  a  divine  revelation  that  it  was  hidden  there. 


8o 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


MADONNA  AND   CHILD,    WITH    SAINTS   BARBARA   AND   CATHARINE. 

By  Bernardino  Luini,  1470-1535.     St.  Catharine  may  be  recog- 
nized by  the  wheel  which  she  wears  as  an  ornament  while  the 
emblem  of  St.  Barbara  is  the  tower  with  three  windows. 


ST.   CATHARINE.  8l 


PAGAN  ANALOGIES. 

The  life  of  St.  Catharine  has  been  made  the  subject 
of  careful  study  especially  in  England,  where  Mrs.  Jame- 
son1 and  Dr.  Einenkel  have  treated  the  subject  with  great 
ability.  Both  have  come  to  the  conclusion  to  look  upon 
Hypatia  as  the  prototype  of  St.  Catharine's  martyrdom. 
The  latter  deems  the  similarities  of  the  life  of  the  saint  and 
her  pagan  parallel  exceedingly  striking.  He  says  (pp. 
xi-xii)  : 

"Time,  place  and  background  exactly  agree.  Both 
ladies  are  of  high  and  noble  origin ;  both  deeply,  and  from 
their  childhood,  imbued  in  the  sciences  of  paganism;  both 
reasoning  with  philosophers,  and,  indeed,  philosophers 
themselves;  both  suffering  and  dying  for  their  belief. 
Here,  too,  in  the  religious  story  as  in  Egyptian  history, 
we  have  a  representative  of  the  worldly  power  playing  an 
important  part  in  the  tragedy,  he  being  in  reality  the  only 
slayer  of  the  virgin.  If  we  come  to  speak  of  the  altera- 
tions which  the  plain  historical  facts  have  undergone,  there 
is  indeed  not  one  of  them  which  might  not  easily  be  ac- 
counted for,  either  by  the  change  of  religion  of  by  the 
changes  of  times." 

No  doubt  the  figure  of  St.  Catharine  has  been  formed 
under  the  influences  of  many  different  traditions  of  Greece, 
Egypt,  Babylonia  and  even  distant  India.  We  can  trace 
in  the  story  echoes  of  Buddhist  sentiments.  We  read  in 
the  Mcnologium  Basiliannm  that  "seeing  the  slaughter  of 
animals,  St.  Catharine  was  so  greatly  moved  that  she  went 
to  King  Maximinus."  This  objection  to  bloody  sacrifices 
was  not  uncommon  among  the  philosophical  critics  of  pa- 
ganism long  before  Christianity  had  become  a  power. 
Though  the  Christians  had  adopted  the  argument  and 
used  it  against  the  pagan  mode  of  worship,  they  did  not 

1  Sacred  and  Legendary  Art,  II,  87-88. 


ST.   CATHARINE. 
By  Fra  Angelico,  1387-1455. 


ST.   CATHARINE.  83 

make  it  as  prominent  as  it  appears  in  the  Catharine  legend. 
The  God  of  the  Christians  was  also  the  God  of  the  Jews, 
and  as  such  he  had  demanded  bloody  sacrifices  as  much  as 
any  of  the  pagan  gods.  In  fact,  if  we  can  trust  historical 
reports,  the  temple  of  Jerusalem  must  have  reeked  with  the 
blood  of  slaughtered  bullocks  and  other  cattle  which  the 
pious  Jews  in  their  zealous  devotion  offered  in  uncounted 
numbers. 

There  were  Oriental  philosophers  in  Alexandria  who 
had  been  under  Jain  and  Buddhist  influences  and  denied 
the  righteousness  of  the  ceremonial  shedding  of  blood. 
But  we  need  not  even  go  so  far  as  distant  India  to  explain 
the  feeling  that  revolted  against  bloody  sacrifice.  The 
Neoplatonists  had  given  frequent  utterance  to  the  same 
sentiment,  and  the  great  religious  leader,  Apollonius  of 
Tyana2  left  no  opportunity  unimproved  to  preach  against 
the  impious  custom  of  bloody  sacrifice. 

Whatever  be  the  historical  source  of  the  St.  Catharine 
legend  we  have  here  a  tradition  which  is  ultimately  based 
upon  a  myth  of  a  solar  bride.  It  is  certainly  not  a  mere 
accident  that  the  emblem  of  St.  Catharine  is  the  wheel 
which  from  time  immemorial  has  been  the  symbol  of  the 
sun,  and  we  must  remember  that  the  ancient  punishment 
of  an  execution  on  the  wheel  was  originally  meant  as  a 
sacrifice  to  the  sun-god. 

Does  Fra  Angelico  perhaps  follow  an  ancient  tradition 
when  he  represents  St.  Catharine  clothed  in  a  garment 
covered  with  the  stars  of  the  heavens?  The  story  of  the 
bride  of  Christ  certainly  testifies  to  the  tenacity  of  religious 
ideas,  and  perhaps  also  to  the  truth  that  even  in  different 
religions,  pagan  as  well  as  Christian,  the  same  ideas  and 
the  same  allegories  turn  up  again  and  again,  as  if  they 
were  the  permanent  element  in  all  historical  changes. 

2  See  "Apollonius  of  Tyana,"  by  T.  Whittaker,  Monist,  XIII,  161. 


ST.  CATHARINE  IN  ART. 

POETIC   SYMBOLISM. 

THE  idea  of  the  mystic  marriage  of  Christ  has  never 
found  friends  among  Protestants,  and  the  legend  of 
St.  Catharine  has  been  almost  disregarded  since  the  Re- 


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THE  MARRIAGE  OF  ST.   CATHARINE. 
By  David  (Gheeraert),  d.  1523.   In  the  National  Gallery  at  Lon- 
don.   On  the  right  are  St.  Barbara  with  a  book  and  Mary  Mag- 
dalene with  ointment,  and  on  the  left  the  donor,  Richard  van  der 
Capelle. 

formation  which  seems  to  have  acted  as  a  blight  upon  its 
romanticism  and    had    more  influence  upon  the  Roman 


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THE  MARRIAGE  OF  ST.   CATHARINE. 

By  Hans  Memling,  d.  1494.     (Louvre.)     St.  Barbara  is  represented  with  a 
book,  and  in  the  background  are  Cecilia,  Agnes  and  other  saints. 


86 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


Catholic  Church  than  is  commonly  conceded.  Even  Roman 
Catholic  artists  became  too  sober — we  might  almost  say 


ST.   CATHARINE. 
By  Raphael,  1483-1520.    In  the  National  Gallery  at  London. 

too  prosaic — and  too  timid  to  revert  to  this  subject  which 
formerly  had  been  so  very  popular,  for  previous  to  the 


ST.    CATHARINE    IN   ART. 


87 


Reformation  it  had  furnished  the  inspiration  of  a  number 
of  charming  and  most  beautiful  pictures  which  are  and 
will  remain  cherished  by  all  lovers  of  art,  Protestants  not 
excepted. 

In  fact  there  is  scarcely  any  great  artist  of  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries  who  has  not  painted  a  St.  Catha- 
rine or  a  mystic  marriage.  We  will  here  mention  only 
Raphael,   Correggio,   Ghirlandajo,   Luini,   Fra   Angelico, 


r ' 

1 

« 

ST.  CATHARINE  WITH  THE  EVANGELISTS  MATTHEW  AND  JOHN. 

Ascribed  to  Master  Stephen  (probably  Stephen  Lothener).  Pre- 
sented by  Queen  Victoria  in  1863  in  fulfilment  of  the  wishes  of  the 
late  Prince  Consort,  to  the  National  Gallery,  London. 


Murillo,  Veronese,  Tintoretto,  Fra  Bartolommeo,  Titian, 
and  among  the  Flemish  painters,  Memling. 

The  more  liberal  we  grow,  the  less  shall  we  scorn  such 
art  productions  from  the  religious  standpoint,  for  we  have 
acquired  breadth  enough  to  find  in  them  the  expression 
of  a  tender  and  poetical  sentiment  that  is  frequently  absent 


88 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


in  the  cold  and  unimaginative  rationalism  of  the  Reforma- 
tion. 

Ecclesiastical  art  represents  St.  Catharine  with  a 
spiked  wheel  commemorative  of  her  martyrdom,  which  is 
consequently  called  St.  Catharine's  wheel.  The  arrange- 
ment of  the  spikes  strongly  suggests  the  rays  of  the  sun. 

Frequently  St.  Catharine  carries  in  her  hand  a  palm 


ST.   CATHARINE. 
By  Pinturicchio,  1454-15 13.    National  Gallery,  London. 


branch  or  books,  both  in  token  of  the  eminent  position 
which  she  holds  on  account  of  her  great  learning.  The 
most  celebrated  illustrations  of  her  life  are  frescoes  by 
Avanzi  and  Altichieri  in  the  church  of  St.  George  at 
Padua,  completed  in  1377,  and  by  Masaccio  in  the  church 
of  St.  Clement  at  Rome  made  in  the  fifteenth  century. 
Not  only  are  there  many  altarpieces  in  the  churches  of 


ST.    CATHARINE    IN    ART. 


89 


Catholics  (and  even  some  in  Protestant  countries)  which 
have  come  down  from  pre-Reformation  times,  but  our  art 
galleries  also  contain  many  valuable  pictures  of  St.  Catha- 
rine including  representations  of  her  mystic  marriage.  All 
of  them  bear  witness  to  the  tenderness  with  which  the  idea 
was  cherished  at  that  time  all  over  Catholic  Christendom. 


THE  NATIONAL  GALLERY  OF  LONDON. 

The  London  National  Gallery  contains  at  least  six  St. 
Catharines,  one  among  them  (No.  168)  is  the  famous  St. 


ST.   CATHARINE. 


By  Carlo  Crivelli,  1430-1493. 
In  the  National  Gallery,  London. 


By  an  unknown  artist  of  the 
Umbrian  School.  National  Gal- 
lery, London. 


Catharine  of  Alexandria  by  Raphael.    Another  (No.  249) 
is  by  Lorenzo  da  San  Severino,1  a  mystic  marriage  of  St. 

1  This  picture  and  the  one  next  mentioned  are  reproduced  on  pages  54 
and  56  of  this  book. 


90 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


Catharine  of  Siena,  and  the  "Two  Catharines"  by  Am- 
brogio  Borgognone  (No.  298). 


A  painting  by  Pinturicchio  (also  in  the  National  Gal- 
lery) shows  the  donor  kneeling  with  folded  hands  before 
our  saint  who  listens  to  his  prayer  with  a  truly  royal  grace. 


ST.    CATHARINE    IN   ART. 


91 


Two  more  pictures  of  St.  Catharine  in  the  National  Gallery 
of  London  are  the  one  by  Carlo  Crivello,2  the  other  by  an 
unknown  master  of  the  Umbrian  school. 


2  A  copy  of  this  picture  in  the  church  of  St.  Giobbe  at  Venice  bears  the 
name  Previtali,  which,  considering  the  fact  that  they  are  apparently  made  by 
the  same  hand,  is  strong  evidence  that  the  artist  worked  under  two  names. 


92 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


ARTISTS  OF  THE  GERMAN  SCHOOLS. 

The  Art  Gallery  of  Cologne  possesses  perhaps  the  rich- 
est collection  of  St.  Catharines.    Among  them  is  a  triptych, 


an  altarpiece  consisting  of  a  center  with  two  wings,  which 
contains  a  series  of  twelve  illustrations  of  the  life  of  St. 
Catharine  by  an  unknown  painter  commonly  designated 


ST.    CATHARINE   IN   ART. 


93 


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ST.    CATHARINE. 
Detail  from  the  above. 


94 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


as  the  Master  of  the  St.  George  Legends.  We  see  that 
even  in  this  subject  the  artist  remains  faithful  to  his  favor- 
ite topic,  for  he  introduces  the  motive  of  the  dragon  into  the 
Catharine  legend. 


MADONNA  AND  CHILD  TOGETHER   WITH   FEMALE  SAINTS  AND  DONOR  S 

FAMILY. 
Artist  known  as  "Master  of  the  Life  of  Mary." 


Considering  the  fact  that  in  Northern  Germany  and  in 
the  Netherlands  the  Reformation  spread  with  great  rapid- 


ST.    CATHARINE    IN    ART. 


95 


ity  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  that  with  it 
every  trace  of  a  belief  in  a  mystic  marriage  was  thoroughly 
wiped  out  together  with  all  saint-veneration  or  reverence 
for  legendary  lore,  we  are  astonished  to  find  a  great  num- 
ber of  Catharine  pictures  in  these  very  countries. 

\Ye  call  special  attention  to  a  picture  painted  by  an 
artist  called  Meister  dcr  Jieiligen  Sippe  (i.  e.,  the  master 


THE  GLORIFICATION   OF  THE  VIRGIN. 
Artist  unknown.    In  the  hospital  at  Cues. 

of  the  holy  family)  who  represents  the  mystic  marriage 
like  a  German  family  scene  in  which  the  bride  is  a  typical 
German  noblewoman  of  the  time,  well  educated,  with  an 
expression  of  simple-hearted  devotion,  and  dressed  with 
painstaking  elegance. 

Another  artist,  known  as  the  Master  of  the  Life  of 
Mary,  places  the  scene  of  the  mystic  marriage  in  a  grace- 


96 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


fully  blossoming  arbor,  the  foliage  of  which  is  so  ideally 
sparse  as  to  indicate  very  early  springtime.  Here  too  the 
features  of  all  the  saints  are  genuinely  Teutonic,  exhibiting- 
the  self-satisfied  complacency  of  wealthy  patricians,  while 


MADONNA  AND  SAINTS. 
By  "Master  Wilhelm."    In  the  Berlin  Museum. 

the  modest  donors  with  their  austere  faces  are  crowded 
into  the  corners. 

In  a  painting  called  'The  Glorification  of  the  Virgin" 


ST.    CATHARINE    IN    ART. 


97 


an  unknown  master  of  the  German  school  presents  us  with 
a  general  view  of  the  Christian  world-conception  of  his 
age.     In  the  heavens  appears  the  Trinity.     In  the  center 


ST.   CATHARINE. 


By  "Master  Wilhelm."  Detail 
from  the  Madonna  of  the  Bean 
Blossom. 


By  Jan  Van   Eyck,    1386- 1440. 
Kgl.  Gemaldegalerie,    Dresden. 


God  the  Son  is  represented  as  the  Christ-child  in  the  arms 
of  his  mother,  while  on  her  right  is  God  the  Father  and  on 
her  left  the  Holy  Ghost.     Below  on  earth  the  male  saints 


98 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


SAINTS  CATHARINE,   HUBERT,  AND  QUIRINUS. 
By  Stephen  Lothener  (1450?)  in  the  Munich  Gallery. 


ST.    CATHARINE    IN   ART. 


99 


are  headed  by  John  the  Baptist,  while  St.  Catharine  takes 
the  leadership  of  the  female  saints. 


ST.   CATHARINE. 


By  an  artist  of  the  "Westphalian 
School."  In  the  Wallraf-Richartz 
Museum  at  Cologne. 


Artist  known  as  "Master  of  the  Life 
of  Mary."  In  the  Wallraf  -  Richartz 
Museum  at  Cologne. 


In  further  evidence  of  the  extraordinary  popularity  of 
St.  Catharine  in  Germany  we  reproduce  two  pictures  of 


IOO 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


Master  Wilhelm,  who  may  have  used  the  same  model  for 
both,  showing  her  once  in  profile  and  then  full  face.  Yet 
we  shall  find  that  all  his  saints  possess  a  great  family  like- 
ness in  that  they  possess  extremely  small  hands  and  un- 


ST.    CATHARINE. 
Engraved  by  Schongauer,  1420- L 


usually  large  foreheads.  Of  a  similar  type,  though  not 
quite  so  pronounced,  are  the  St.  Catharines  by  Stephen 
Lothener  and  by  the  Master  of  the  Life  of  Mary,  while  an 


ST.    CATHARINE   IN   ART. 


IOI 


unknown  artist  of  the  Westphalian  school  endows  his  St. 
Catharine  with  hands  of  normal  size. 

Martin  Schongauer  flourished  on    the   Upper  Rhine 
through  the  greater  part  of  the  fifteenth  century.    He  was 


ST.    CATHARINE. 
Engraved  by  Schongauer,  1420- 1< 


a  very  important  artist  for  his  time,  although  very  few 
of  his  paintings  now  remain  and  they  are  not  nearly  so 
good  as  his  engravings,  on  account  of  which  he  may  justly 


102 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


be  called  the  father  of  engraving-  in  Germany.    His  power 
of  invention  was  good  and  his  execution  was  animated  and 


ST.    CATHARINES    DELIVERANCE. 
Engraving  by  Diirer,  1471-1528. 


spirited.    His  "Temptation  of  St.  Anthony"  is  said  to  have 
served  Michael  Angelo  as  a  model,  and  several  others  of 


ST.    CATHARINE   IN   ART.  IO3 

his  works  excel  anything  done  at  the  same  time  by  his 
German  contemporaries.  Two  engravings  of  St.  Catha- 
rine from  the  hand  of  this  pioneer  artist  have  come  down 
to  us,  which  show  great  delicacy  of  taste  and  refinement 
of  feeling.  Although  varying  somewhat  in  details  they  are 
almost  identical  in  general  conception  giving  the  impres- 
sion at  first  glance  that  they  are  two  different  views  of  the 
same  figure. 

A  MEMLING  BREVIARY. 

In  the  National  Museum  of  Munich  we  find  (in  Hall 
VII,  No.  802)  a  breviary,  most  beautifully  illuminated  by 
an  artist  of  the  Hans  Memling  school,  made  for  Queen 
Jeanne  of  Valladolid,  mother  of  Charles  V,  which  by  in- 
heritance came  into  the  possession  of  her  granddaughter 
Duchess  Anne  of  Bavaria,  wife  of  Duke  Albrecht  V.  It 
remained  in  possession  of  the  ducal  family  of  Bavaria 
until  it  was  deposited  in  the  National  Museum  of  Munich. 

In  this  breviary  we  find  the  legend  of  St.  Catharine 
with  her  portrait  and  illustrations  of  the  main  incidents 
of  her  life.  Like  a  Flemish  princess,  she  is  blue-eyed  and 
blond-haired,  and  richly  dressed.  Her  blue  bodice,  adorned 
with  gold  brocade  and  costly  pearls  is  contrasted  by  her 
long  white  sleeves  and  pink  mantle,  while  her  forehead  is 
decked  with  a  diadem.  In  one  hand  she  holds  a  sword  and 
in  the  other  a  book  in  which  she  seems  to  be  reading. 

Another  breviary  preserved  in  the  same  place  contains 
a  similar  picture  which  appeals  to  us  as  even  more  beautiful 
and  dignified  than  the  former.  It  comes  from  the  same 
school,  Memling.  The  attitude  of  the  saint  is  more  natural 
and  her  face  more  regular.  She  stands  likewise  in  a  win- 
dow of  Gothic  architecture,  through  which  is  seen  a  purely 
ornamental  landscape.  Her  emblem,  the  wheel,  is  simply 
indicated  as  an  ornament  on  her  bodice.     There  is  no 


104 


THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


ST.    CATHARINE. 
In  a  Memling  Breviary.    Collection  of  Munich,  Hall  7,  No.  862. 


ST.    CATHARINE    IN   ART. 


I05 


ST.    CATHARINE. 
In  a  Memling  Breviary. 


©FTHE 

UNIVERSITY 


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THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 


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A  PAGE  OF  ILLUMINATED  TEXT. 
Referring  to  the  story  of  St.  Catharine.    In  a  Memling  Breviary. 


ST.    CATHARINE    IN   ART.  ICV7 

affectation  in  the  way  she  holds  the  sword  and  the  book, 
nor  in  the  manner  in  which  she  is  reading. 

The  artistic  work  of  these  books  is  very  delicate,  but 
it  is  more  interesting  to  notice  the  pious  aspect  and  relig- 
ious reverence  which  has  guided  the  artist's  hand.  Appar- 
ently these  pictures  were  made  in  an  age  when  the  legend 
was  still  naively  believed  and  when  the  artist  endeavored 
to  picture  faithfully  the  saint  who  was  deemed  worthy  to 
be  the  bride  of  Christ. 


CONCLUSION. 

THE  story  of  the  Bride  of  Christ  seems  to  have  been 
forgotten.  It  is  a  legend  that  has  been  practically 
discarded  and  yet  it  possesses  an  unusual  attraction.  It 
is  the  last  echo  of  a  very  ancient  belief,  the  most  romantic 
episode  of  mythic  lore — the  marriage  of  a  god  and  the 
homage  paid  to  his  bride. 

It  is  true  that  this  idea  comes  down  to  us  from  pagan 
sources,  but  is  there  any  feature  in  Christianity  which  has 
not  its  pagan  prototypes  ?  Are  not  the  ideas  of  a  god-man, 
of  a  god  incarnation,  of  a  saviour,  of  atonement  for  sin 
through  sacrifice,  yea  through  the  innocent  blood  of  the 
god-man  himself,  his  martyr  death  and  his  final  triumph 
after  his  restoration  to  life,  traits  in  the  pre-Christian  re- 
ligions of  Egypt,  Greece,  Babylon  and  India?  Are  not 
Osiris,  Heracles  and  other  Grecian  heroes,  Tammuz,  Bel, 
Krishna,  and  all  the  innumerable  god-incarnations  of  the 
gentiles,  prototypes  of  Christ,  and  has  not  the  feature  of 
their  marriage  also  its  parallel  in  the  traditions,  canonical 
and  extracanonical,  of  Christianity? 

The  ideal  of  a  god-man  in  religion  is  based  upon  a 
psychological  need  deeply  rooted  in  man's  soul.  It  is  man's 
inborn  tendency  toward  hero-worship.  We  admire  great 
men,  we  praise  them  in  song,  we  exalt  them  and  keep 
them  before  our  eyes  as  examples  worthy  of  imitation. 
This  hero-worship  is  the  quintessence  of  that  peculiar  type 
of  religious  devotion  which  in  former  ages  begot  the  myth- 


CONCLUSION.  IO9 

ology  of  pagan  saviours,  and  in  the  age  of  Christianity 
brought  forth  the  ideal  of  Christ,  the  god-man. 

Man  is  not  complete  in  himself.  True  humanity  con- 
sists in  man  and  woman.  In  fact  manhood  finds  its  per- 
fection only  in  the  family  and  so  we  have  in  the  mythol- 
ogy of  all  religions  the  trinity  of  father,  mother,  child, 
and  the  hero  god  is  rarely  pictured  without  touching  upon 
the  relation  to  the  heroine,  his  marriage  to  a  type  of  ideal 
womanhood.  This  feature,  however,  has  been  gradually 
dropped  out  of  sight  in  Christianity  because  the  origin  of 
Christianity  coincides  with  a  dualistic  movement  which  is 
decidedly  hostile  not  only  to  nature  and  everything  natural 
(for  its  seeks  the  supernatural),  but  also  and  especially 
to  the  most  human  in  man,  the  love  between  man  and 
woman.  For  this  reason  the  pagan  trinity  ideal  of  God- 
Father,  God-Mother  and  God-Child,  has  been  changed 
into  the  less  human  relation  of  God  the  Father,  God  the 
Son,  and  God  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  Koran  still  knows  of  Mary  as  one  person  of  the 
Trinity,  which  proves  that  in  the  days  of  its  authorship 
another  conception  of  the  Christian  Trinity  was  prevalent, 
and  a  stray  notice  in  heretical  gospels  preserves  a  simi- 
lar conception  as  evidenced  in  the  uncanonical  word  of 
Christ,  "My  Mother,  the  Holy  Ghost."  Though  this  con- 
ception was  ruled  out  by  the  dualistic  interpretation  of 
early  Christianity,  it  yet  asserted  itself  in  the  legend,  more 
or  less  recognized  by  the  Church,  of  the  bride  of  Christ, 
as  well  as  in  the  worship  of  Mary  which  practically  came 
to  be  of  equal  rank  with  the  worship  of  Christ  and  the 
worship  of  God.  Ever  since  the  Reformation  made  its 
influence  felt  in  the  Christian  world,  and  there  is  no  ques- 
tion that  even  the  Greek  and  Roman  Churches  were  deeply 
affected  by  it,  the  romantic  element  of  religion  has  been 
neglected  and  with  it  the  worship  of  the  divine  in  the  shape 
of  woman  has  become  almost  entirely  obliterated.    The  an- 


IIO  THE  BRIDE  OF  CHRIST. 

cient  Mariolatry  is  weakened  even  in  the  Catholic  Church, 
or  at  any  rate  it  is  no  longer  so  popular  among  the  people 
as  it  was  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  legend  of  St.  Catha- 
rine has  suffered  in  proportion. 

The  Protestant  spirit  wants  religion  pure  and  simple, — 
religion  without  romance,  without  mythology,  if  possible 
without  ritual  and  symbol.  Some  Protestant  churches  go 
so  far  as  to  deny  art  admittance  to  sacred  worship.  Pic- 
tures as  well  as  statues,  incense,  symbols,  rituals,  are 
scorned  as  pagan,  and  God  is  conceived  in  the  abstractness 
of  the  idea  more  than  after  the  fashion  of  mystical  intui- 
tion. And  yet,  even  the  Protestant  conception  of  God  re- 
mains an  allegory.  God  is  conceived  as  a  Father,  as  a  great 
benevolent  seigneur  who  with  parental  care  watches  over 
all  his  children  and  embraces  them  in  his  tender  love.  Now 
since  even  this  conception  can  no  longer  be  taken  literally 
but  is  a  figure  of  speech  just  as  Christian  legends  are 
pious  fairy  tales,  so  we  learn  to  appreciate  again  the  ro- 
mantic poetry  of  saint  worship  and  the  various  allegor- 
ical methods  employed  by  almost  all  the  religions  of  the 
past. 

Mankind  has  had  the  same  experience  with  reference 
to  the  mythology  of  Greek  antiquity.  So  long  as  there 
was  danger  of  the  gods  being  still  believed  in  literally, 
there  was  a  bitter  hostility  toward  the  ancient  mythology, 
but  in  the  days  of  the  Renaissance,  when  there  was  no 
possibility  of  a  return  to  paganism,  the  interest  in  antique 
traditions,  the  love  of  pagan  art  and  the  admiration  of 
classical  ideas  became  firmly  re-established,  and  the  rec- 
ognition of  their  value  is  not  likely  ever  to  be  shaken 
again. 

We  have  at  last  become  just  toward  a  vanquished  en- 
emy. At  the  present  time  we  need  no  longer  fear  that 
the  legend  of  the  bride  of  Christ  will  ever  be  taken  seriously 
or  in  a  literal  sense.  Even  orthodox  members  of  the  Church 


CONCLUSION.  Ill 

will  not  treat  it  as  history  but  as  poetry,  as  legend,  as 
Christian  myth.  And  so  it  is  natural  that  our  interest  in 
the  subject  will  be  keener  and  deeper.  At  least  this  is  the 
author's  own  experience  and  from  this  sentiment  the  pres- 
ent book  has  sprung. 


■ 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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General  Library 

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